A hammer clattered on the stage; there were dark figures struggling in the orchestra pit; another hammer spun through the air and dented a cabinet. Then it was all over: gangs of security police came from every exit and from the stage. The tiny mob of Luddites were disarmed and marched away within two minutes of their attack.
Roderick went outside to find out if Luke was still in one piece. He couldn’t see the astronaut among the men with bleeding heads being herded into a paddy wagon.
A security cop was talking to a city cop. ‘We could of used a little backup from you guys, you know? What if these guys had got nasty? Where’s all your guys?’
‘Ain’t you heard? Over watching the big fire, at the Roxy.’
‘The Roxy? Anybody killed?’
‘Naw, they had a full house too, three hundred easy, on account of this big-budget movie. But they all got out I guess the movie was so boring half of them were ready to leave anyway. Nobody even hurt.’
Roderick slunk away like a criminal. On the way home he stopped on a bridge to throw his hat in the river.
XIX
‘Please sit down. This won’t take a second.’
The man behind the desk had gleaming silver hair, gold glasses, a healthy tan, a Harris tweed jacket with soft white shirt and quiet knitted tie. He was writing something with a gold pencil on cream laid paper, resting it on a blotter decorated with a sky motif, pale blue with soft white cumulus. The blotter protected the gold-embossed leather top of his desk, which was of some handsome dark wood in some pleasantly vague antique style, with a brass handle or two. It stood in the deep pile of an Aubusson carpet.
The room was so arranged as to carry the eye slowly from one rich, pleasing and innocuous object to another — the paintings by Cuyp and Miro, the geode paperweight, the brass barometer.
The man finally stopped writing. ‘Now then, suppose we start with your name.’
‘Roderick Wood.’
‘Fine. Mind if I call you Roderick? Okay then, Roderick, what seems to be the problem?’
‘Everything, doctor. Everything.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well like last night I was supposed to go to the movies with this girl, at the Roxy. Only she stood me up. And if she hadn’t we and three hundred other people would have burned up in the big fire.’
‘How do you feel about being stood up, Roderick?’
‘Terrible, but — I don’t know. I don’t even know if I can feel. I’m not even real, I’m a robot.’
‘Why do you say that you’re a robot?’
‘Because I am.’
‘You believe you’re a robot?’
‘I am synthetic. Ersatz. Substitute. Artificial. Not genuine. Unnatural. Not born of woman. False. Fake. Counterfeit. Sham. A simulacrum. Not bona fide. A simulation. An echo, mirror image, shadow, caricature, copy. Pretend. Make-believe. A dummy, an imitation, a guy, an effigy, a likeness, a duplicate.’
‘So you believe you’re not genuine?’
‘Robots seldom are, doctor. And I am certainly a robot. Or if you prefer, an automaton, android, golem, homunculus, steam man, clockwork man, mannequin, doll, marionette, wooden-head, tin man, lay figure, scarecrow, wind-up toy,
The doctor picked up his gold pencil, put it down again, and leaned back. ‘All right, but suppose you were not a robot?’
‘But I am.’
‘Tell me a little about your childhood.’
‘What is there to tell? I was a normal healthy robot child, lusted after my mother and killed my father. But through it all, I had no sense of purpose. I still don’t have one.’
‘And you want a sense of purpose?’ When Roderick did not answer, the psychiatrist tapped his gold pencil on the sky blotter for a moment. Then: ‘Do you dream much?’
‘I had a dream last night. I dreamed I was walking down the street naked, with strangers staring. A man playing a tuba came up to me and asked for some rice for his mother. Someone with no face was giving a speech, saying that suffering and death are nothing but zebras eating doughnuts. Suddenly I was frightened; I hid under the stairs until the teacher called us all to our desks and made us draw trees. Then all the furniture started to move and then I was being chased through the snow by a sewing machine. The dentist was trying to stick my feet to a giant can-opener, the fire chief’s teeth were on the floor, don’t ask me why. I was on the doorstep of a strange house, my mother came to the door saying: “This house, with all its luxurious rooms tastefully furnished with elegant appointments (either casual colourful room coordinates with a casual contemporary look, or traditional antiqued items with the accent on classic styling) designed for a graceful, decorator-look life-style is really four nuns eating popcorn on an escalator.” In the next room they were showing a movie of my entire life. I saw a penny on the floor, and when I picked it up I saw another, and when I picked it up I saw another, and when…’
‘Yes, go on.’
‘Then I woke up.’
The psychiatrist looked at his watch. ‘Well I see our time is up. Like to go into this dream with you more in detail next week, Roderick. Okay?’
Roderick was out in the waiting room again when he realized the psychiatrist probably thought the robot talk was all part of a delusion. Why hadn’t he proved he was a robot? Why hadn’t he, say, opened up his chest panel to show his innards? Was he afraid of shocking the doctor? Afraid of seeing the kindly, impartial face suddenly jerk into a mask of fear?
He went back in. ‘Doctor, there’s one thing I ought to tell you—’
‘Please sit down. This won’t take a second.’
The doctor was writing again with his gold pencil on cream laid paper. When he had finished, he turned to Roderick with no recognition. ‘Now then, suppose we start with your name.’
‘You don’t know me?’
‘Do you think I should know you?’
‘Since I just left the room not five minutes ago, yes.’
‘I see.’ After a slight pause, the doctor said, ‘Roderick Wood, this is not your appointment. I must ask you to leave.’
On impulse, Roderick got up and walked around behind the desk. The doctor sat back and looked at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just looking.’ Below the hem of the doctor’s rich Harris tweed jacket there were no legs, no chair legs or human legs. There was only a steel pedestal as for a counter-stool, and a thick coaxial cable plugged into the floor. In the middle of the doctor’s back was a small plate:
‘A robot. You’re a robot.’
The doctor turned to face him. ‘Does that upset you?’
‘It disgusts me.’
‘Next time we must talk about that disgust you feel.’
