Category Archives: Excerpt

Standard-Issue Partner, Chapter 5

Longevity, Chapter 1: 2000

A life without end,
stars call from the endless night,
time slips through our hands.

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This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?

I’m being born right there, in that room. The surgeons are performing an emergency c-section on my mother, and it’s not going well. She survives, as do I, but there’s a lot of scarring, and she takes a long time to recover. My father is a nervous wreck, not because he’s worried about me. I’m the youngest of three boys, and he’s learned to handle babies just fine, but the idea of losing my mother is terrifying to him. My aunts and uncles are pacing in the waiting room, and we’ve been in the operating room for quite a while now. I’m told later that I can’t possibly remember it, but I’ve been told the story so many times that I feel like I do, although it’s been more than what I consider a lifetime ago, much longer really.

It’s January 1st, 2000, at 12:10 am. I’m not by any stretch to claim the title of the New Year’s baby, but I’m born so close to midnight that it doesn’t matter. The lucky thing though, or maybe not, I’m not sure anymore, is that as a result, I’ve never had a problem knowing exactly how old I am. I have friends who can remember the year but can’t remember how old they are without a calculator these days, but for me, well… if I can tell what year it is, I know exactly how old I am.

The family is overjoyed to see me when my father can finally take some visitors, but Mom’s in a little more trouble still, and the doctors are working on her. I had some trouble with extra fluid in my lungs and that didn’t make anyone happy, but it passed quickly enough, and I was a hefty ten pounds and eleven ounces after they weighed me for the first time.

Stamps were taken of my feet, and my official name was recorded. It’s Jacob Evan Andersen. I’ve had it long enough. They pass me around a lot. I end up in first one grandmother’s hands, and then another for a while as my father finishes doing all the paperwork the hospital requires. A few minutes later and my mother is brought out. She’s not allowed to stand up for a while. There are two IVs in her, one with blood and one dripping with saline. She’s lost a lot, more than anyone thought she would, but she’s in good spirits.

She recovers just fine, and we’re only a couple of days in the hospital, back when that’s how long you stayed in a hospital for the birth.

It’s an interesting time to be alive. Lots of good movies, and television. The ebook revolution is just taking hold. People are trading the soft and familiar feel of paper books for the convenience of being able to carry them all with you at the same time. Is that a curse or a blessing? I haven’t figured that out yet. It’s already possible to carry every record album you own with you if you have a device with enough space, but people aren’t yet carrying all their favorite television shows and movies around with them all the time. I figure that’s not too far off.

The space program isn’t much to speak of. There are a few more flights to the international space station, something I remember more as a collection of tin cans strung together with chewing gum and wire. As a toddler and teenager, I heard that we once landed men on the moon, but that we found little, and nobody thought it would be much use to go back after a while. There were only so many rocks you could bring back before everyone was bored with it. I suppose innovation is always faster when you have an enemy to compete with.

A flood of relatives visited us in the hospital, but not as many as I expected. It was quite the party, though. I don’t think I let my parents sleep for the first six months I was alive. I had help. With two older brothers, I think we all gave them a run for their money. I saw Dad really lose it twice, but mostly, they were both so cool as we grew up.

At the end of our hospital stay, they wheeled my mother to the car, an old minivan, and we all transitioned in. You’d think we were getting the car packed to go on a vacation. There had to be fifteen large bags Dad had to pile into the back, and after all the kids were packed in, and strapped into the various car and booster seats, we were off, our first trip together as a family. (At least with me along for the ride.)

We’d later take the big trip to Disney World, and another one out to the Grand Canyon before Mom died, but the big one was the trek up into Alaska in recreational vehicles. Camping every night, campfires, marshmallows, and anything else you could get on a stick. Those were the days.

I have been nowhere that I could build a campfire for a while. I’ve been keeping a notebook forever. It seems like little snippets of what happens to me. I used to keep it all online as a blog, but I was tired of upgrading it all the time, and since it was just for me anyway, I kept it in various notebooks, on paper. If you had any idea what I have to go through to get notebooks made of paper and pens with real ink in them these days, well. You’ll know eventually. If you live as long as I have, anyway. Hell, if you’re old enough to have found this manuscript, you probably are. I did cave in a couple of years ago and send the older stuff to a scanning store. They tore all the old notebooks up and scanned every page, so at least when you’re looking through them, they all still look like paper.

Opens up like a book though, and the facing pages light up and show you where I was writing… Of course, you probably can’t read my old handwriting, can you?

Standard-Issue Partner, Chapter 4

Neon lights flicker,
Machines replace flesh and bone,
Trust must still be earned.

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This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Standard-Issue Partner.

Early the next morning Flint got up and dressed. He checked Simon’s charger and made sure it still had twenty percent to go. He put on his jacket and got his things together. He pulled on his backpack, which he had supplied with food, flashlights, and a change of clothes, as well as a few other sundries, and made his way out to the hovercar deck, and unlatched it. The sun was not yet up, and the morning rain was sticking to the buildings in a way that was frankly unpleasant.

He opened the car, tossed in his supplies, and cranked it up. The navigation computer revved up and told him his location, and before long there was a signal coming in from the base.

The screen buzzed to life, and the Chief stood there, with eyes that looked a little worse for wear. “What are you doing on patrol at this hour Flint? Where’s your robot?”

“No robots today Chief. I’m taking a sick day from the force.”

“Nonsense, you haven’t taken a sick day in thirty years.”

“Precisely.”

“Precisely?”

“Yes. I think I’m due a day off, don’t you?”

“Yes, but Flint, the next bust, you’re on tap, and we need you.”

“You can do this one without me today.”

“But Flint…”

“I need a day Chief. Deal with it, I need to get out of the city.”

“There’s going to be hell-to-pay.”

“Then pay it. I’ve got things to do today.”

“Flint!”

Flint snapped the monitor off. He’d pay for that one later he supposed, but he wasn’t going to allow for this. He had to get out of the city, and this was the time. He flew until the rain diminished, and things started to get a little clearer. He could see the edges of the city beyond. He nose-dived down, and hugged the surface streets, a place rarely used these days and increased his speed. The buildings flew by, shooting past him like they were nothing more than streaks in a grand tunnel of some kind.

The buildings began to seem smaller, only a hundred stories each, and soon he was down to the small stuff, fifty stories or less. He had only managed to make a bust out this far a couple of times. He couldn’t believe how much of the sky he could see from here, and actual stars. The city lights behind were blinding. He had always heard that the lights of the city would drown out the lights of the stars, but he never believed just how many there actually were.

Then he saw it, ahead of him in the distance.

It was the first one he had ever seen, a tree.

It was magnificent. It stood fifty feet tall, a great magnolia tree, not that Flint knew what it was called, nor did he think of any resources he could look one up in. He stopped the hovercar, and maneuvered it around the tree, moving slowly, and taking in everything that he could. He’d never really had a chance to mourn Roberts. He had just gone on and started in with Simon, not really taking the time to go and recognize anything, to experience anything, or to give himself a chance at regrouping and reorganizing his thoughts. He thought he would go further west and see what was out there. Outside the cities, there were several of them across the country these days, it was supposed to be desert and wastelands, but this didn’t much look like a wasteland to him.

He revved up the hovercar and zoomed out to the west, four hundred miles an hour at the outside, but occasionally slowing down to take in a landmark or some bit of scenery. The hills were beautiful. The old cracked roads and highways, no longer used by anybody extended into nowhere, covered by a layer of vegetation that was unheard of in the cities.

Not that this was a real mystery, all this nature, but it just seemed like folks had forgotten, sitting in their towers and playing their games. He hung low in the sky. The sun was just coming up behind him. He’d never seen the whole sun before, usually just seeing a glimpse of it through a cloud or some other piece of building or the spire of a skyscraper, which seemed like the only kind of building to have these days. There was a bright light above the sun as it rose. Bright pin-point of light shined in the distance. It stayed with the sun, right ahead of it as it ascended into the sky. Was it a star?

“Computer?”

“Yes?” said a clipped computer voice.

“What’s that light behind us, over the sun?”

“That is the planet Saturn.”

“Saturn.”

“Is there anything else you would like? You’ve got three messages from the Chief.”

“What do they say?”

“‘Return or you’re fired, Return or we’ll arrest you,’ and ‘Come on man!'”

“Figures. Patch me through to him.”

The Chief’s face fizzled up on the screen. “Well?”

“It’s just a day.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“No.”

“Are you going to send Simon after me?”

“Yes, as soon as his charge comes up.”

“Don’t.”

“No real choice pal. We’ve got to make sure you return.”

“I’m not going to run. Haven’t you ever taken a day off?”

“No, and I don’t see the point.”

“You should. I think it would do some good.”

“Where are you?”

“And spoil all of Simon’s fun finding me? I don’t think so.”

“We’ve got your beacon on the radar. We know where you are anyway.”

“I suppose I’ll have to do something about that.”

“Flint…”

“Did you know the star that comes up ahead of the sun is really the planet Saturn?”

“Is it?”

“It is.”

“Flint, why do you care?”

“Because I’m ninety-five, and I’ve never seen anything. All I know is busts, and raids, and carnage.”

“Simon, what else is there? Do you want a career as a journalist?”

“No. I just need to see some things for myself, that’s all. I saw my first tree today.”

“Did you?”

“And I’m going to see the Grand Canyon also.”

“The what?”

“It’s a big hole in the ground.”

“Great. My best special ops cop needs to go and see a hole in the ground.”

“Send the robot if you must, but I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You know I can’t make you come back.”

“Call it earned vacation.”

“Like we ever really have any of that anymore.”

“Yep. So, you’ll send the Robot?”

“Yep. It’s just for backup. you never know what you can find out there in the wastes.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll check in with you later?”

“Not today.”

The Chief nodded and signed off, twisting a knob at the bottom of his display. Flint flicked off his as well, and then flicked another toggle that started to brew a cup of coffee for him as he flew west. On the horizon, a mesa was coming up on his right. The beginning of the painted desert began to open itself to him in the morning light. Flint simply couldn’t put the colors together in his mind. It may have been the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. He circled it taking in the ancient cities built into the side of one of the great mesas.

“Ancient man, there you have it, early high-rises.”

He took off towards the west, and he thought that the mesa or one of its cousins might have been the most beautiful natural formation he had ever seen, until he got to the Grand Canyon, where he had to land the hovercar near an old abandoned tourist trap, and flop to the ground, and take it all in.

Back in the apartment, a soft beep came from Simon’s charger, and a small light went from green to blue. The panel slid away and Simon stepped out.

He looked around. “Flint?”

He walked into each of the rooms of the apartment, searching. Lights were dimmed, and there was nothing going on, and nobody about. “Flint?”

He flipped on the bathroom lights, half expecting to see him in there or a note on the mirror, something else he had been trained to look for in cops who were adjusting to having a robot for a partner. He wondered for a moment if expecting a suicide note so early was really such a healthy thing to be looking for. Was having a robotic partner that upsetting? Could the shock really be too much for someone? Certainly, robots were around every day. Certainly, they were around so much that people didn’t much care what kind of a partner they had.

The living room monitor came on, a call from the Chief. Simon flicked it on. “Simon?” said the Chief.

“Yes, sir. Is Flint all right?”

“Yes, He’s fine. He’s just switched off his homing beacon, but he’s somewhere in the midwest. I’ll need you to track him down and bring him in, but let him have his say first. Be prepared, he is expecting you to try.”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s just taking a day off. I just want you to keep an eye on him and make sure he returns to us. Understand?”

“Absolutely. How do I get out there?”

“Flint’s got a pair of hoverbikes. It’s a lot like strapping yourself to a rocket and hitting the go switch. You are already programmed for it, so don’t worry about it. You’ll know how to drive it as soon as you see it.”

“Where was he going?”

“Last time we had him he was in an area of old Nevada near the Grand Canyon, whatever that is.”

Databanks in Simon’s head began to access the main database in the city center and looked up hundred-year-old maps of Nevada. It soon located the Grand Canyon. “That’s pretty far off. What condition is his hovercar in?”

“Should be fine, those things have a half-life of at least fifty years.”

“Okay, I’ll be off in just a moment.”

“Go armed.”

“For Flint?”

“No, but you never know. There are stories of folks hanging out in the wastes outside the cities.”

“I never go without it.”

Simon smiled, and the Chief and he seemed to understand one another.

“Simon, just bring him back to us.”

“Will do.”

He went upstairs, to the garage, and found the hoverbikes. They did indeed look like large rocket engines. He strapped himself in and blew out into the day on a streak of rocket fuel.

He pulled the bike toward the west and poured on the speed. An hour later the city was behind him, and he began to move out into the suburbs. Ahead of him, he saw the great magnolia tree as the first sign of botanical life. He stopped the hoverbike to look at it and picked a leaf to take with him and study on the way. It felt heavy for its size, plump and full of chlorophyll and other nutrients. He tucked it away in an extra evidence compartment in his chest.

Flint watched the sunset boil into the horizon, the first one he had ever seen in his life. The stars were starting to really come out, and emblazon the sky with their story. Constellations he had never seen in his life revealed themselves to him one after the other as the stars began their trek across the sky. He had shut off the lights from the hovercar, to make sure there was no light to disturb his vision of the stars. He, therefore, saw Simon coming about a hundred miles off, at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Flint didn’t know whether or not to look up or down. He’d spent the day looking between the empty blue sky to the vastness of the Grand Canyon.

He set off a signal flare. It spooked off his night vision, but it was worth it. Simon had been circling for some time now. May as well let him know where he was. Simon checked his course and turned toward the spot where Flint was sitting. He touched down, the engine beneath him rattling with exhaustion. He killed the rattling engine and slumped off of the bike. Flint helped him up.

“You didn’t answer your video phone.”

“I was taking in the scenery, sorry. Come on. Have a seat.”

Flint had set up a small campfire, which wasn’t yet lit so that he could get the most out of his night of seeing real stars. The moon was beginning to come up in the distance. He pointed it out to Simon.

“I saw it when I was up higher.”

“I’ve never seen it before. What do you make of that?”

“I don’t know what to make of it.”

“None of them in the cities can see this.”

“None?”

“Nobody who isn’t looking out of a high powered telescope anyway, and since the smog over the city hangs there all the time now I don’t see how it could work unless you were somewhere like this.”

Simon looked out at the Grand Canyon. He wished, like a little Pinocchio that he could appreciate it all, but he couldn’t. He could catalog it, and sense it, and identify it, but he couldn’t understand it or appreciate it. “I don’t get it.”

“You will. If you’re going to be my partner, you’re going to have to.”

“Can you teach that to a robot?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to try. I love the force too much to leave, and if being your partner is the only way to stay, then I’ve got to make the most of it.”

Flint looked out over the horizon counting the stars. From his bag in the hovercar, he pulled a sleeping bag, and he settled himself down, hands behind his head to look up at the stars. Simon craned his own neck to watch them from the boulder he was sitting on. Flint noticed that Simon could crane his neck just a bit too far to look normal.

He watched the night sky, staying awake until the early hours of the morning. He watched as satellites crossed the sky, counting them as they went around the Earth. With some help from his car’s computer, he found the constellation of Pegasus and tried to count the number of stars within Pegasus’s main square. He had heard that one of the Native American tribes used to do that as a test of manhood, but he wasn’t sure. He lost count in the hundreds and fell asleep, losing the battle to the long journey and the sheer number of sights and sounds.

During the night, Simon kept watching. He hooked himself up to the hoverbike and charged slowly off its battery as he did so. The night stayed quiet for the most part. Most of the animals that used to live in this region of the old United States were long since extinct.

Just before dawn, Simon was overlooking the edge of the Grand Canyon, with the dying fire crackling behind him, and just about to unhook his power cable from the hoverbike when he looked up to see an old man with leathery skin, wearing a series of animal skins around his body. The ground seemed to thunder beneath his feet, but he could not move them. The old man spoke in a thick accent, unused to speaking English. He seemed to return to an old native tongue once every few words or so for a moment.

“You there,” said the man.

“Me?” Simon was astonished to realize he could talk. His internal diagnostics were recording the thunder through the ground but the data was not being stored properly. His eyes also seemed to be malfunctioning, because the man kept sweeping in and out of his vision.

“You,” he said. “Are you the keeper of this man on the ground?”

“I’m his partner. We’re detectives.”

“Then he is a detective, and you are a robot then?”

“Yes.”

“His robot.”

“I suppose, although I’m really mine.”

“I suppose.”

The old man seemed to shift and squeeze from here to there. He appeared on Simon’s left side, then his right.

“I have a message for the sleeping man. He will not wake up until I am gone. Your audio recorder will not work, and neither will your video recorder, so don’t even try. You may, however, write this into a text file in memory.”

Simon confirmed the failure of all those devices while trying to use them simultaneously.

“The message is this,” he said. “You are denying your own heritage. The robot is right once in a while. And oh yes, Say hello to your mother. That’s all. Yep. I think so.”

The man disappeared without a trace and left Simon feeling cold and alone. The wind seemed to cackle, and the thundering sound intensified until he saw it. There was a herd of buffalo, extinct for seventy years, and heading for him right at this minute. There must have been five hundred head of Buffalo. They stampeded towards them. The ground shook. The trees rattled. The hovercar slid a few inches on its hover field.

Simon’s legs couldn’t move. He found that he could not move any other parts of his body, or speak. He was desperate. They were about to be killed. The ground shook. The fire toppled over, and Flint did not stir from sleep.

With a few feet to go, the buffalo disappeared into the mist and the thunderous sound of their hooves dissipated into the wind. In a moment the sun peaked over the horizon, and after that all was quiet.

Flint opened his eyes and looked around.

Simon stared him down, unable to contemplate what had just happened to him.

“Rough night?”

Simon unhooked himself from the hoverbike, which he had totally drained during the experience, and pushed the bike over the edge.

Flint saw him do it but did not mention anything.

“We’ll get another one,” said Simon.

Flint shook his head. It wasn’t his bike at any rate. The force owned everything anyway. He stirred a cup of coffee that had been brewed inside his little Hover car. He mixed the small amount of powdered milk in that he’d brought along, not that he knew what real milk tasted like anyway, not since he was a very little boy in any case.

There was a crispness to the air. It seemed to crackle and splinter behind his ears, raising the hairs on his neck. “Simon?”

Simon made a quick scan of the area and looked Flint in the eyes. “They’re coming.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. They’re coming from the southeast. I think… Duck!”

Flint dived for cover, not really knowing which way to turn, and behind him, his hovercar exploded in a shower of light and sparks. He spilled the coffee all over himself but did not notice. Rising above the edge of the Grand Canyon, a huge metal object, that looked as if it were made more of rust than anything else hovered over the cliff face.

“What the hell!”

Another missile from the craft impacted with the hovercar and sent what remained of the craft into the sky. The wreckage sailed over the cliff and down into the Canyon.

“Holy crap!”

Flint dived behind a rock, soon accompanied by Simon.

“Who the hell are they?” Flint flipped the safety on his laser pistol and checked it, powering it up.

“Cannibals.”

“What?” Flint shook his head. “Nonsense! There’s no such thing!”

“Apparently there are.”

“What do they want?”

“What I’ve read is that they’re scavengers.”

“Not very good at it. I’d have chased us off before blowing up the hovercar.”

“It might have been the bike that got their attention.”

“Point.”

“What do we do about it?”

The rusty wreckage began to sweep around. Large lights on its undersurface blazed and searched around for them in the morning light. Wind-generated from turbines underneath the craft held it aloft and managed to drive dust and grass into every human and robotic orifice and crevice that either of them had.

“Under here!”

Simon and Flint slid under a series of bushes and held on, hooking their elbows and knees around the roots.

The turbines above them drove the leaves of the bushes into their ears and eyes. Flint held his eyes as tightly shut as he possibly could. Simon lowered a series of power glasses from his eyelids and continued to watch the craft.

Satisfied there was nothing else to find, the craft moved off, and back down into the canyon. The wind subsided and the two released their branches and roots and fell to the ground.

Flint pushed himself up to see the rusted ship floating over the edge of the canyon and then down into it.

Simon joined him, brushing off leaves and dust. “There they go.”

“We’ve got to get in there.”

“In there? Flint, we’ve got to get back.”

“Yeah, and how are we going to do it? We’ve got to get one of those things. Otherwise, we’re walking back, and I think we’re going to have to do it soon.”

“Otherwise?”

“Otherwise I’ll be recharging you with a bicycle and a set of rubber bands.”

Simon thought about this. In his mind, he set himself up for the longest possible charge, shutting down all non-critical functions, down to the lights in his eyes. “All right, let’s go, but we need a plan.”

“We’ll just have to improvise.”

“I hoped you weren’t going to say that.”

“Come on.”

“That one’s starting to get irritating too.”

“Can robots get irritated.”

“Yes.”

Together they trudged down into the Canyon. Ancient trails that snaked down into the canyon made the going easy, but long. The brush was thick, and the view was amazing.

“The Chief’s going to have an interesting time with this one.”

“Why?”

“No way to contact us. We’re supposed to be back by now.”

“Truth is they probably think we’re dead.”

“The ship.”

“As soon as the blip disappeared, I’m sure they got a report that one of their hovercars had been destroyed. Funny though, they haven’t tried to get in touch with me.”

“Can they contact you directly?”

“Yes, at least I’m on the network most of the time, so my signal should be showing up if they’re looking, of course, it may be that we’re too far out.”

“Can you get a signal?”

“Let me try.”

Simon closed his eyes and sent a burst out to bounce off a satellite, and back to the main system. “I can’t get in.”

“Is something blocking you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s get on down there.”

They continued on down the path towards the bottom of the Grand Canyon, to the old Colorado River.

“Why is it called the Colorado River?” asked Simon.

“I’m not even sure I remember what Colorado is.”

Around them, they could see birds crisscrossing the sky, swooping and circling on thermals. “I haven’t seen a bird since I was a kid. We used to have them on my grandmother’s farm.”

“I wish I had some of those.”

“What?”

“Memories.”

“You will. All you have now is knowledge, soon you’ll have memories, and that’ll be the really confusing part.”

“Why?”

“Memories are funny. They’re not always what you think they are. Even people with the same memories never really agree on what happened.”

“Hmm.”

They passed the remains of the hoverbike.

“I wonder why they didn’t pick it up.”

“Good question. We can use it though.”

“I’m afraid I’ve sucked it dry. We couldn’t ride it anywhere.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. Roberts always kept a bit of equipment on the bike, if ever he needed it. We ought to be able to salvage something.”

They took a large plate off of the back of the hoverbike, with a tool hidden under one of the front fenders. Inside the compartment, they found a small backpack with a bit of food, several small laser pistols, and a map, of this area.

“Now isn’t that strange,” said Flint, holding up the map.

“Very interesting,” said Simon.

They folded out the map and set it on a small outcropping of rock.

It showed where they were, this side of the ridge of the Canyon, and a satellite photo of this area, including a large settlement at the bottom of the Canyon. It looked like a large factory, rectangular in nature, right over the Colorado River, and then off to the sides a series of rounded buildings connected by spires or spokes that went out all around it.

“What is this thing?”

“I’m not sure,” said Simon. “But I think we ought to find out.”

Traveling down wasn’t so much of a problem. There were one or two places where the path had washed out, and they had to jump, but it wasn’t really a problem. On the ground, the trek became tougher. The sun, which Flint was still really enjoying wasn’t helping. The heat was making the afternoon almost unbearable.

Above them, the vultures still circled, except they seemed to be getting closer, almost as if they were following the two of them. Snakes crawled around at their feet. A rattlesnake, which completely fascinated Simon slithered out and nearly bit Flint on the ankle as they were passing a series of rocks that were baking in the sun.

Soon, a building became visible ahead of them. It was marvelous, built of glass and steel, and seemed to radiate a very used and lived-in appearance. It was definitely old, and there were definitely patches of rust, but much of it was actually built of copper and aluminum.

They ducked down behind a series of rocks near the river, they could see it was teaming with fish and watched as ships of all sizes from simple one-man scouts to larger fishing ships floated out from a hub toward the south end of the structure.

They had to wait for night. There wasn’t another way about it. They would be seen, and fast if they made a movement in the daylight from here.

They watched as patrols went out in search of them, looking near the ridgeline and up and down the sides of the nearby canyon. They watched as fishing barges floated out above the river and sunk huge nets into the water, and drew up fish by the thousands.

Some of the craft were light one-man vessels that appeared to have long pointed tapered ends, with large fins toward the front. It looked as if they used them to slice sheets of water up when flying low over the river. There was another craft that looked like family vehicles, capable of four or five passengers. It was through the windows of one of these that Flint got his first blurry look at the people. They did look like humans, but he couldn’t get a good look at them. They all seemed to be wearing lighter colors though, lots of yellow, white and taupe. Flint wondered if this was a standard uniform or if they simply didn’t have method or material for darker colors.

The night was coming on again. They had observed for several hours. “How are we going to get in there?” asked Simon.

“I’m thinking somehow up underneath.” That seems to be the way most of the craft are coming and going, and it seems to me that if we find a craft and are able to pilot it out it’ll be close to the doors we’ve been watching open and close underneath for most of the day.

“I can see that,” said Simon.

“Duck!”

They ducked under a portion of the rock they were using for cover just as one of the search vessels crossed over them from above, its lights blazing on the ground, lighting everything up. They scrambled around, staying around or behind the rock as the vehicle crossed over them, and then it was off, shooting towards the building. They watched as an arm lowered from the building, and took hold of it, bringing it in.

With it out of the way, Flint shouldered Roberts’s backpack, and they started to make their way to the building.

As the darkness gathered, they made their way across the desert, staying close to the river the entire time. By the time they were within a hundred feet of the towering structure, night had completely fallen.

“Let’s get up there,” said Flint.

Standard-Issue Partner, Chapter 3

Neon lights flicker,
Machines replace flesh and bone,
Trust must still be earned.

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This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Standard-Issue Partner.

Workers arrived the next morning early, Flint was still in his clothes from the night before, his beard was a little on the scruffy side, and the second cup of coffee was still biting at the edges of his consciousness.

They found Simon propped up on the couch. Flint wasn’t thrilled about the manner in which this made his apartment look like a crime scene, but there it was, the best he could do. The eyes were still black. If he could have closed them or propped them open or something, that would have been something.

The workers brought in a plethora of contraptions, the first of which was designed to take Flint’s coat closet and turn it into Simon’s single bedroom. It was an upright chamber with clamps in place at the waist, head, and ankles that looked like something out of Frankenstein’s laboratory. It lit up electric green when they turned it on, and it did seem to dim the lights when they first activated it.

One of the workers bent down and pulled up one of Simon’s legs. “Sir,” he said. “There is an extra power pouch down here next to his ankle.

Flint looked at the ankle and couldn’t see anything unusual about it. “I don’t see anything.”

The worker put his hand around the ankle and twisted. Quickly, the robot’s foot popped back into position, and the worker dropped the leg. “He’ll now have enough reserve power to get to the booth and plug himself in. Once he reboots.”

How long is the reserve charge?”

“A few minutes tops.”

Simon suddenly shook his head and stood up. “Well, that was interesting. Drop off did I?”

Flint pointed over to the workers.

“Ah, great, my booth. looks ready.”

“How long does it take to recharge?”

“Depends. Eight hours overnight, and I’m good to go for twenty-four. I could do a flash charge for thirty minutes and be ready for the day, but I’d have to go back in the box early that night.”

“Let’s do that.”

Simon nodded and walked over to the booth. He tapped it with his fingers, and it opened. He stepped in, attached the clamps to himself, and then pressed another button inside. The booth filled with green light, bright enough to read by.

One of the workers closed the old closet door in front of the booth and blocked out the light. He smiled at Flint and finished cleaning up the debris around where he had been working.

There were other things brought in, various appliances. Half of the kitchen was converted into a workshop, complete with a variety of high precision tools for working on the robots.

“Do I have to know how any of this stuff works?”

One of the workers replied, “It doesn’t hurt, but the robot will make use of them himself as he needs to make repairs. He’ll basically take care of himself.”

Within another half-hour, they were finished, and Flint wasn’t sure if he’d ever see his apartment the same way again. There was a soft ding from the closet, and Simon came out. He even looked like he was rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“You ready?”

“Sure thing.”

“It’s about that time. We need to make it in and get out assignments from the Chief, though I imagine I’ve got an idea what he’ll do.”

“Proving grounds?”

“Most likely.”

A half an hour later the Chief looked at them and said “Proving Grounds.”

“We knew it,” said Simon.

“But first, you’ll have to get Simon here geared up. He’s got a standard-issue laser pistol there, but not much of anything else.”

Flint took him down to requisitions, which was basically a huge discount store that also sold bullets, laser packs, weapons, police hover-cars, and it all came out of your check. Of course these days everything seemed to come out of the check. Having never seen an actual check, Flint decided he was going to have to look up what one of those looked like later.

First, they went for the underwear, boxers with T-shirts, then they went for the rest of the outfit. It included a long duster, hat, dress pants, and a white shirt.

A zipper was added for access to his inside-the-thigh holster, and the suit was well-tailored. Flint liked the look, though he could barely pull it off. He was thinking in terms of allowing people to feel the robot was in charge of turning routine calls and allowing him to get in folks way and out of his while he did the real work. It never really worked that way, but it never hurt to dream either.

When they arrived later at the proving grounds they both went for black jumpsuits. The standard-issue laser pistol was the only thing allowed onto the course.

After suiting up, they crossed into a small auditorium, and ready to meet them there was a short robot, trash can-shaped, with lots of extra arms protruding from its top. Most of them seemed to be for a particular function. One of them was a laser pistol, another was a soldering iron, another was a five-digit hand, then a periscope, and on and on. The body of the robot was green, and it looked like it had been in there for some time.

The lights dimmed, and a projector flared to life in the back of the room.

The green robot chirped to life, and several mismatched eyes around the section of body most associated with its head lit up. Some were green, others red, and one large cyan eye seemed to gleam above all the others.

“Gentlemen, I am F-Force 269. Officer Calvin, your new partner is scheduled for training in the proving grounds today, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get on with it.”

The big cyan eye blinked, and a slide appeared, projected on the wall behind the old robot.

On the slide was an image of a spherical floating robot with a series of green eyes around it at the top and bottom, and several blaster holes through which lasers can be fired at any time.

“The first task is to eliminate all of these little buggers, there’s nine of them in all in the course. They were massive, at least fifteen feet tall at the outside, and ten feet wide. The proving grounds were made up of the sixteenth and seventeenth levels of the building together, and Flint had always suspected that there were a host of audio-animatronics, illusions, and just plain robots that went into it. It was changed on a biannual basis, and Flint had actually served on the committee that designed the course on three different occasions. Not on this one though. Every ten years, when you are first admitted into the force, and each time you either change or lose a partner, you had to go through it again. When he was on the committee Flint had suggested that every cop should go through it at least once every three years. Stepping through the door today, he wasn’t sure he could make it through alive again. Some recruits died attempting the proving grounds, that was simple logic they would never have been able to handle the job.

Flint wondered.

He checked his laser pistol one more time. Everything checked out. He turned to Simon. “What’s your model’s record on achieving the proving grounds course?”

“Ninety-five percent.”

“What of the other five?”

“Three percent were destroyed saving their human partners.”

“And the other two?”

“The other two were destroyed by their human partners in firing mishaps or other human error.”

“Terrific.”

“Terrific for you, not coming out of this functioning is one of the only times the force won’t rebuild a robot partner.”

“Why not?”

“If they can’t make it through the proving grounds, they are considered defective, and scrapped.”

“Well, with any luck neither of us will get scrapped today.”

They stepped through the doors. Before them was a large circular room. Windows around the walls showed a computer-generated underwater landscape. A digital readout above the door read “1 ft. Above Sea Level.”

They looked around them. There were tables strewn with aqua-lungs, re-breathers, chain-mail suits of pull-on armor, diving belts, and underwater gear.

“Looks like an underwater adventure.”

“Naturally.”

Flint gave the robot a look, but it wasn’t seen, and he didn’t say anything.

Then they began to plummet. The windows in the walls gave way to water, the sky was soon no longer visible, and before long they were in the deep, dark ocean.

The meter on the door began to flash first ten feet underwater, then thirty, then sixty, then a hundred and twenty. When it came to a stop, Flint and Simon were securing their pressure suits. It was a pretty interesting setup. The aqua-lung was connected to the suit in several places making for a break-away effect that left room for a lot of flexibility. First, there was an ordinary wet suit. on top of that was a fine layer of mesh in the form of ultra-light chain-mail armor. Above that was a special pressurized suit for ultra-low depth diving. The usefulness of the suit was that each layer could be broken away at any given time, that and that they were armed.

Every gadget known to man seemed to be strapped onto them in some way, shape or form. Aside from their lasers, which were already rated for firing below the water, they were each covered in grenades, ink squirters, infrared goggles, extendable flippers, small water engines that sucked water in and squirted it out of the back. They were set. They were ready. The lights went out, and the water started pouring in.

Simon checked his suit for the last time, though it was devoid of an oxygen tank, he was carrying some extra equipment. He frantically checked for air pockets or leaks.

The water poured in and filled the room. It did so in a matter of seconds. Flint and Simon were blown off their feet and into the room. They swirled around watching the whole place turned upside down around them and held their breath. A few moments later, the room was full, and they were floating in the middle. Lights lit their faces so they could see one another.

Simon motioned to Flint, and then a comm channel opened between them. “Are you all right?”

Flint nodded. Aside from being thrashed and beaten up a bid by the inrush of water, he was actually feeling pretty good. “Yeah. Not bad I think.”

Simon lit a flashlight and shined it around. It was attached to his helmet. Flint turned him on as well. They looked around the room and pushed through the pile of overturned tables and desks where their suits and weapons had been sitting only moments ago.

A small television screen blurted on, inside their helmets, in a sort of a heads-up display. It was the little green trash can again.

“Good, it looks like you’ve both gotten the aqua suits on fast enough not to be killed by the water. That’s very good,” said the can.

“Got any other good news for us?” asked Flint.

“Yes. Here’s the scenario. In a moment the doors ahead of you will open. Your mission is to penetrate the team of ex-seals and retrieve as much of the technology bundle they’ve stolen as possible. Then you are to capture as many as possible, and return them to the surface all before your air runs out.”

“Perfect. How much air do we have?”

“You have an hour.”

“And Simon?”

“He’s a robot. He doesn’t need any. Please make use of this fact as you dive. It’s a critical part of your success, and will be graded harshly.”

“Any other delightful news?”

“Yes. The chain mail will come in very useful.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

The image fizzled and fell away.

“Terrific.”

Before them, a second large door opened, and the tunnel mapped out before them.

“Lights out Simon.”

Simon nodded and switched out his lights.

“Flip on your infrared.”

Simon and Flint flipped them on at the same time. The corridor ahead of them shifted to black and white, but they were still able to see quite clearly.

They drifted up and through the tunnel. Flint checked the temperature and noticed it was freezing cold. “Shouldn’t be much life here.”

“Of course, you know it persists in the coldest temperatures.”

“True, but I’m thinking in terms of the sharks we’re likely to see.”

“You think they will being sharks in?”

“Maybe not real ones, but you can bet there will be something. this chain-mail isn’t going to stop a laser beam, but it might stop a shark.”

“What else do you think.”

“Remember we’re on the sixteenth and seventeenth floor of the police tower.”

“What good will that do?”

“It’ll ground you. If you think about it you’ll be able to tell if something isn’t really as big as it looks when you’re looking at a wide area. Also, things that are really real will start popping out more often than not.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. So far this doesn’t look as hard as the three of these I’ve helped design.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Those all started blazing away before the participants were able to suit up. The delay in any challenges is creepy. Either it’s rougher than anything I’ve ever seen, or it’s not tough enough.”

“What’s the problem then?”

“The stats on this version of the test. There’s only a sixty-percent pass rate.”

“What about the death rate?”

“About ten percent. Simulated death anyway. Just keep thinking you’re still in the police tower and come up here.”

Simon turned his head and saw that Flint was swimming along inverted, against the ceiling. He moved up to join him.

Flint squinted and thought.

“What do you think?” asked Simon.

“Any moment… Now!”

Ahead of the two large spherical robots swooped in, followed by a third. They created currents in the water that was difficult to swim against.

Flint hugged the ceiling. Simon followed suit.

The robots passed them.

“Why didn’t they shoot?”

Flint sniffed. “They weren’t using infrared. They won’t make that mistake twice. Let’s blast them!”

Flint and Simon shot down into the middle of the corridor, using their personal jets, and blasted their way down. The robots seemed to turn, or at least their glowing eyes seemed to swivel about on little track lines on their body to see them floating there.

“Here they come!”

Flint pulled a small rocket launcher from his gear and popped off a rocket into their midst. Simon cut loose with laser fire. It cut one of them, sending plumes of oil and smoke into the water. The rocket exploded and sent shrapnel in all directions. Flint twisted and swerved to avoid the pieces. One of the robots was damaged by the blast, but the other seemed only lightly grazed. The damaged one and the one cut by the laser blast fell into each other and exploded sending a plume of bubbles toward the ceiling, and they slowly sank to the floor. The other cut loose with its lasers, blasting them in all directions and began to rotate the lasers down little tracks across its spherical body so that it lit up the room and began to create a boxing effect, driving Simon and Flint down toward the floor.

“Quick, down here!” Flint headed for one of the husks of the other two robots. He dived in, hiding amongst the rubble. Simon dove in after him. It was cramped, but there was some air here and there in little bubbles as they slowly streaked out through the cracks. “Find its weapon systems.”

“How?”

“You’re the robot, you tell me! Plug into it or something!”

Simon considered this for a moment, and then tore the glove from his left hand, a gauntlet and all, and wiggled his fingers. His index broke in half and a stream of little soft wires protruded from the digit, snaking their way into relay panels in the gigantic robot.

Above them the third robot stopped shooting, and starting scanning, looking for them among the wreckage.

“He’s scanning now. Can you hear the hum?”

Simon nodded. “Just a second.” He twitched and screwed up his face. “Got it!”

The husk of a robot lit up beneath the one that was still functioning. The pristine model scanned down and seemed to look around, as all the husk’s remaining guns twirled around and shot straight up at it with a terrifyingly concentrated blast.

The robot exploded in a gigantic fireball, scorched underneath by the other’s rays.

It began to sink, its air pockets blowing away through the cracks.

Simon noticed, just as Flint did. “We’ve got to get out of here,” they said and used their jets to zoom out in different directions as the one collided with the wreckage of the other in an underwater blast.

Soon all was dark.

They hid among the wreckage. “There are supposed to be more of them.”

Simon concurred. “Nine, right?”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Maybe there are around the corner.”

Then they heard it, the hum of the robots.

“Here they come.”

“Sounds like a bunch.”

“They’re dragging something.”

“How can you tell?”

“Robotic ears. I can hear your ulcer bleeding.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s very very useful. Let’s stay hidden for a moment.”

“All right.”

They hid and watched as the other six robots passed over them. They seemed not to notice the wreckage of the other robots beneath them, but they were dragging something behind them.

“What is it?” The infrared in Flint’s display had temporarily fuzzed-out, still re-calibrating from after the last blast.

“It’s a box of some kind, looks about the size of an aircar, maybe smaller.”

Flint’s video display cleared. “Yes, I can see it. It looks like a mail cartridge; they’re used on short space flights. I wonder what’s in there…”

They waited for the robots to pass, deciding to tail them for a while and see where they went. Flint checked his oxygen, He seemed to have less than a half an hour left. Flint tapped his timer.

“Are you going to tap me after I’m blown to bits to see if I still work?”

Flint ignored this question and tapped the dial anyway.

Staying far enough behind to stay in the dark, they followed the guard robots, which were pulling the crate behind them in the water. After a couple of turns, they dived down a small opening and came to rest on the floor below. The crate sunk and settled on the bottom of the chamber, and the robot guards seemed to let go of their tethers and float up, right towards Flint and Simon!

“Quick! Over here!”

Simon lurched and saw Flint disappearing behind a short wall. He zipped over there, in his suit and ducked behind the wall with him. They watched as the six robots took up century duty over the hole.

Simon pulled his rocket launcher.

“No!”

Simon put it away again.

“Not every victory is a kill.”

Simon watched him

Flint breathed deeply. “I’m going to conserve some air. I want you to swim back down the corridor and make a diversion. Draw them to you, then I’m going to get down there and see what’s in that crate.”

“What kind of a diversion?”

“The best kind!”

Simon tilted his head, thinking about what would disturb the robots the most.

“Forget the robots.”

“How? That’s the object right?”

“Yeah, but we’ll need more time than that. Do something that will keep the guys in the control room running this test busy too.”

Simon waited for the idea.

“Go tap into the computers and tell the central hub that the aquarium they’ve got up here is leaking into the records department.”

Simon nodded. “I’m on it.”

“It ought to keep everyone busy for at least a few minutes.”

Simon set his little jet and zoomed down the corridor, careful to keep all his lights off. One of the century robots noticed him but did not seem to register him as a threat. They continued guarding their area.

Flint watched the second hand on his watch, he had to time it just right. A few ticks later the robots all started floundering around looking in all directions. Simon had managed it. The robots floated up to the ceiling to start checking the pipes, and a few ticks after that Flint was in, settling down near the cargo box. He twisted open the back panel and slipped into the airlock in just enough time to see several men, though Flint new all the participants here to be robots by design, shooting past him, riding underwater jet skis.

He cycled the hatch, and air-filled the chamber.

He pulled his mask and threw his tank aside. He’d run out of oxygen, and pulled off the outer layer of his suit, revealing the chain-mail. He dripped, but he did it very quietly. Ahead of him, several people were unloading a crate in the small underwater box. They were not wearing wet suits. The alarms were still blaring outside. The robots, being programmed to react like humans were starting to get a little jittery.

He took aim, and with the help of a powerful scope shot one of them in the head. The robot went down, circuits oozing from the hole in its head. The others took cover, but another shot took out the second one with no problem. The third was shot by Simon, who then stepped into the clearing with the crate they were examining.

Flint almost shot him.

He came out of the darkness and landed in front of Simon.

“What the hell was that about?”

“I finished him off, besides here’s the crate, we can examine it while everyone is searching for the fault in the aquarium’s electrical system.”

“You could have radioed me or something. I nearly shot you, thinking you were another one of them.”

Simon didn’t know what to think.

“Come on, open this thing up, and let’s take a look inside.”

Simon tore the top of the crate off and inside was a series of computer parts, but the most interesting thing seemed to be a series of memory cards.

Simon picked up the memory cards, and the shipping box they were in rock. “They’re on their way!”

“Quick,” said Flint. “Download everything on those cards. Just keep one as evidence. We’ll need to be almost hands-free to get out of here.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“By blasting this crate. There’s a cockpit at the front. They use these things to load and unload cargo in space.”

“And underwater?”

“Who knows. Maybe they’re trying to simulate a space mission while keeping it on the planet.”

They clambered up to the front and get into the cockpit. Flint smiled. “Make us a hole.”

“That’s likely to destroy part of the chief’s office at this site.”

Flint smiled again. “Good.”

Simon hit the laser-armed on the little shuttle and blasted the ceiling. The water really did start to leak then, a steady stream of bubbles began to surround them. They used the bubbles, combined with the limited mobility of the shuttle to bring it up to the ceiling, where they used robotic arms on the sides of the shuttle to grab hold of the ceiling.

Flint pulled up out of his chair. “Now all I need is a little re-breather.”

They searched through the supplies at the back of the cargo area and came up with a re-breather unit. It had a short air supply and fit over Flint’s mouth and nose. “This ought to do.”

He took it with them and they climbed to the top of the boxes in the cargo hold. Flint looked to Simon, “Blow it.”

Simon looked at the panel Flint was pointing at. “Easy.” he blew the hold. Above them, there was a dripping and wet but filled with air, the pocket where the ceiling had been torn away by blaster fire.

Flint looked around them. “This way.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the Chief’s office.”

“Ah…”

Flint maneuvered through the inner workings of the air duct they had blasted their way into and crawled up through this way and that until he made it where he was going, and punched his way through the air intake in the Chief’s office.

The Chief jumped as Flint pushed his way in, followed by Simon.

“God Dammit Flint!”

Flint smiled, and took the memory stick from Simon and handed it over to the Chief. “The rest of the data is stored in Simon here. Simon, let the Chief have it.”

Simon pushed his finger into the memory slot of the Chief’s computer interface, and downloaded all the information into the Chief’s computer, and brought it up. On the screen, images of tactical movements on the moon between troops of different nationalities enveloped the screen, and plans for space fighters and high-intensity weapons filled the screen.

“Good work,” said the Chief absently. “Good work. Now get out of here.”

Flint and Simon turned and left.

“Not bad, for a robot.”

“Not bad for a human.”

Flint smiled, though not intentionally.

They ordered up the hovercar and made their way back to the apartment. The air was swollen with cars and the head of exhaust and greenhouse gasses. They passed by spots where Flint remembered going on stakeouts with Roberts. It seemed like an age had passed.

“Maybe I should retire.”

“What?” Could a robot be stunned?

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I’ve got it anymore.”

“You kicked ass today.”

“What kind of talk is that for a robot?”

“It’s programmed in, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just be yourself.”

“Doing my best. It’s you I’m thinking about at the moment.”

“How’s your fuel level doing?”

“I’m fine for another six hours hard running, sixteen if I’m just arguing with you.”

“No arguments here.”

“No, you’re just thinking of quitting the force, that’s all.”

“Put things plainly there don’t you?”

“Sometimes it’s hard to move on.”

“Is this in your programming too?”

“Fifty-nine percent of cops like you saddled with a robot for a new partner consider bailing out. We have to expect you to try at some stage.”

“Perfect. What’s the percentage of cops who actually do it?”

“One.”

“Just one?”

“That’s being nice. Almost no one does it, but everybody thinks about it.”

“What’s wrong with having a human partner though?”

“Here’s the thing. I don’t eat, besides recharges I barely sleep, I’m usually pretty dependable, and I’m usually right when it comes to forensic evidence, all of which I’m qualified to take and evaluate while in the field.”

“So you’re just a tool then.”

“A tool and a friend. Besides, the main goal isn’t to have fewer human police anyway.”

“No?”

“No.” Simon paused. “It’s so that the force can cover twice as many emergency calls and busts as before with the same number of human cops.”

Flint didn’t say anything. He was thinking of a comeback for that one.

“Besides,” said Simon. “You like it.”

“What?”

“You like it. You were great in that training exercise earlier. You were focused. I only out thought you a couple of times.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“It should be.”

“No, look I’m just not sure I want to ride around with a robot all the time.”

“Why not? You encounter them all day, and you know how to deal with us.”

“I don’t know.”

“The Chief will be pissed.”

“He’ll live, I’ve pissed him off before.”

“Not like this. It’s one thing to have a spat, but to leave him, it’ll hurt.”

“Not as much.”

“Not as much as losing Roberts?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well I know. Give me a chance though before you have my memory wiped.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair then, is it.”

“Look let’s just get in out of this haze.”

Flint piloted the hovercar into the entry bay at his apartment building in the sky. He landed and locked the craft into its harness.

He and Simon left it there, but not before Flint went to the edge and looked down. “I’ve never seen it you know.”

“What?”

“The ground. I’ve always been up in the sky soaring around in the sky.”

“Come on.”

Flint and Simon went in. Flint went for the coffee first, starting the brew for the strongest cup he could muster. Simon prepped the recharger, and stepped into it, turning it on, and sitting back into the little booth provided for him.

“Goodnight Flint.”

Flint slurped half of his coffee. “Goodnight Simon.”

Simon closed the booth and allowed the recharging juices to take him.

Flint went to the window of his apartment and tried to look down to the ground. He couldn’t see that far. The buildings just seemed to go on forever towards a bottomless pit. Of course, he knew the ground was there. He knew that some animals even still lived in parts of the earth. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about all of that, but he was sure that soon he was going to have to see them, or at least go looking for it.

There were calls to make and plans to break, but it could all wait for the morning. Of course, there’s always the next assignment to take care of, and the next adventure to go on.

He went to Simon’s recharging cabinet. There had to be a better way than this to have a robot for a partner. There could never be a chance to dispute who grabbed the check at a restaurant, there would never be a celebration over his promotion, there would never be a gray hair on his stinking head. He hated the robot. He wished it would go away. Why did he have to enjoy working with it as much as he had today? How could you stay angry and resentful when the thing wanted to be angry with was so goddamn helpful?

He smacked the glass, but Simon didn’t stir. He just sat there recharging. He wondered for a moment if it was possible for Simon’s android brain to dream in there as he recharged. He thought he could do with some recharging himself.

He slumped into the couch, a plush leather job, and kicked up his feet. Maybe he’d ask Simon if he could dream in the morning if he wasn’t having him hauled away. With little difficulty based on the day’s physical activity, he fell asleep.

Standard-Issue Partner, Chapter 2

Neon lights flicker,
Machines replace flesh and bone,
Trust must still be earned.

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This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Standard-Issue Partner.

“I don’t think he’s dead.” Flint heard himself saying it over and over as he piloted toward the Eastern United States Robotic Proving Ground Facility, located south of Washington D.C. The buildings of the complex were white and stark only contrasted by the mirrored glass. The sun was harsh despite the clouds, and it was difficult to see.

The radio crackled to life. “Flint Calvin, this is Proving Ground East, please transmit your security clearance, scrambled fifty-six please.”

“Acknowledged.” Flint pressed a button on his control panel and the Proving Ground’s signal locked on, guiding him in on a thin beam of light.

“Thank you, officer Calvin, we’re a match. You may release the hand controls now.”

“Copy that tower,” Flint said.

He released the controls and the ship piloted itself in through the midst of white and silver buildings. Other police hovers made their way in and out, as well as some military models.

The hovercar set down in a small hanger, overlooking a grand fountain, in which stood a series of statues, who held hands in a line just under the streams of water. From one spout a shot of water erupted by itself and splashed into a second fountain forming an arc, then the same amount of water spurted forth again, landing in a third.

The statues seemed to be watching him. He looked again, but they had not moved.

He walked into the building where Chief Parkers were waiting for him.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” the Chief asked.

“You know this is my best chance.”

The Chief nodded, “Well, let’s get to it. This process can be a bit of a trying time for a cadet. In your case, and the case of others who have lost human partners, this can be even worse.”

“What kind of procedure is this?”

“Well, in addition to being your partner, the robot has to be bonded to you. We take steps to make sure that his loyalties never fade, and that he stays true to you at all times. It also helps to curb corruption. It’s a lot like adopting a child. By the end of the day, we’ll have your partner fully trained and his logic circuits devoted to you. He’ll follow you into a fire, and save your ass if it needs saving, but in the meantime, we’ll have to get him used to you, set you up so-to-speak. There are plenty of choices to make.

“Choices?”

“It’s not like you’ve never seen these things before Flint,”

“True, I’ve worked with hundreds.”

“Yeah, anyway, the choices. It’s like a simulation. You pick the hair, eyes, nose, teeth, you could make him look like Roberts if you wanted to, but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, especially with Dianne. At any rate, come on in, and let’s get started.”

They stepped aboard a small square unit, built in the frame of a cube, and the Chief pulled a lever, and the unit began to move forward, leading them down a slender track at what was not an alarming speed but wasn’t really in the realm of safe either. They rocketed around, in and out of tubes connected to other buildings towards the robot proving grounds.

“See there,” said the chief. He pointed down below them at a sea of robot recruits, each taking laser target practice with near-perfect aim. They were clunky rather than smooth in the looks compartment, and they seemed to take their target practice very seriously. As they moved on, they came across some of the more advanced models. These looked almost human in appearance. They seemed a bit cockier and sure of themselves. They fired their weapons accurately, but more from the hip.

“Are these a different model?”

“No, these are all the same model. We’ll go through the process with you. The basic models we just saw can all be modified into just about anything you can think of. It’s all about what you’re more comfortable with.”

“These ones with skin, they seem a little funny, like attitude is setting in.”

“All programmed. Today’s cop tends to ask for a partner who is ready to hit the ground running.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

Flint paused and watched the robots as they took target practice. Some of them were starting to exhibit more skills and talents in the fighting arena. One of the robots was performing unreal movements and kung fu fighting styles. Another was shooting laser beams with its eyes, and another removed it’s head and held it aloft, around a corner to catch a glimpse of its opponent. Pity, it’s opponent was another robot, who promptly shot it, destroying the headless one with an electric jolt, shot from its wrist.

The chief pulled a lever and pulled the cube into a short dive, and shot it through a tube into another part of the building.

Soon, on the other side of the glass, Flint began to watch as the robots began what he knew as “The Walk.” It was a town, like an ancient western town, there were a saloon and bank, complete with wooden targets what would jump out and flash at them. One was taking an exam, prowling down the streets. If not for the glowing blue eyes Flint wouldn’t have known it was a robot.

The robot fired twelve times, ducking here and there, and at one point, jumping over the hood of an old-fashioned car to come face to face with the cardboard cut out of a horse, tied to the railing in front of the saloon.

The numbers “100%” flashed in front of them as they slid into the next corridor. Ahead of them robots, engaging in a night raid simulation, fired upon each other. This time, the robotic cops in training with eyes of blue, and the villain’s trained eyes of red LED. When they blinked, their eyes seemed to wink on and off.

“Here’s one now,” said the chief.

He stopped the cart and maneuvered it down into a side corridor. He pressed a button, and the side of the cart slid apart.

“This way,” The chief motioned as he exited the craft.

Flint followed him, making his way through a small opening below one of the conveyor belts.

“The R-COP series is the best ever built. And you’ll have one of the best.”

“I’m more comfortable with the older models.”

“The ones with no personality?”

“Yes.”

“Rubbish. Besides, it’s next to impossible anyway. We never refurbish, we only melt-down and fashion new parts for the latest models.”

The chief opened a small doorway, and Flint followed him through, ducking through plastic wires and rubber tubing from above.

“What are we in, some kind of basement?”

“No, this is research.”

“Perfect.”

The Chief closed the door and flicked a switch. What was once dank and miserable transformed into a white laboratory under the lights.

“Impressive.”

“Wait until you meet one of these guys.” The Chief turned his head and called, “Okay, send him in!”

A hatchway opened, after spinning up and down several locking mechanisms, and from behind it, a small doorway opened into the ceiling. Standing beyond it was a man. Or at least it seemed to be a man.

Flint squinted at it, and there it stood, about five foot nine, looking like it was about a hundred and fifty pounds. Flint overlooked the red hair, certainly, the robotic cop wouldn’t be programmed with some kind of an Irish accent.

It was breathing.

Flint stepped back from it.

“It’s breathing.”

“True.”

“Untrue,” said the robot.

Flint looked him in the eye.

The Chief held his hand to his mouth to hide a smile.

“What?”

“It is untrue that I breathe.”

It stood there, nevertheless, breathing. It drew in large, deep breaths, and exhaled them, sometimes through the mouth.

Flint looked him over.

“What’s your name?”

“It is of yet, un-programed. For the moment It should suffice that I am an R-COP 5001, the latest model to date. I am here to serve and protect, covering you during your investigations.”

“un-programmed.”

“It’s true,” said the Chief. “The name is up to you.”

“Great. I can’t even name a pet.”

“What about Samuel?” suggested the Chief?

“No,” thought Flint, mostly to himself. “Simon.”

“Simon?”

“Yeah, now what can I do about the look?”

“You can change everything.”

“Good. We’ll start with the height. He’s too short. Make him taller.”

“Just request it.”

“Six foot two, an officer needs some height.”

Simon stretched, and the metallic fabrics of his being shifted until he was six foot two.

“Then the hair, You’re not going to be an Irish cop. Make it brown.”

It became brown and lengthened a little bit.

“No, shorter.”

The hair receded a bit.

“That’s better. Can’t have him looking better than me.”

“Of course not.”

“Can these things be changed at any time.”

The Chief cut off the robot at this point. “No, once the adoption is final, everything will become unchangeable.”

“Adoption?”

“Maybe not the best of terms, but it seems to work for us. This is a partnership for life. That’s why we want to make sure he suits you.”

“Then what about a woman?”

Flint stood before Simon again. “Let’s make it a woman.” He changed into her. “With long black hair and blue eyes.” the robot shifted and changed accordingly. Flint thought about it. “Not exactly sick, but…”

“Some work better with a female partner. I think Dianne might have something to say though, don’t you?”

“Leave her out of this.” He turned back to the robot. “Return to the male configuration.”

It returned.

Simon shook his head as if to clear it.

“Not bad.”

Flint looked at it.

“Chief, I don’t want this.”

“It’s too bad. I’ll work up your retirement in the morning.”

“I want to stay on the force.”

“I suppose I could arrange for something, a desk job perhaps, somewhere in the parole department, or perhaps as a truant officer.”

“That’s cold.”

“This is the way it is now. New partners aren’t paired up, there are a human component and a robotic one, one the computer, and the other the brain, with a fabulous backup. We’ve tested this, it’s not foolproof, but the best of the best all have a robotic counterpart these days right down to a new recruit. Deal with it. I could really embarrass you and set you up with one of the trash can-shaped models.”

“That’s definitely the solution.”

“Flint,”

“No. Maybe it’s for the best.”

“Maybe I’m not supposed to go on.”

“I didn’t mean it like that”

“Maybe you did.”

They thought for a moment.

“Maybe I did.”

“Forget it.”

“May I be of any assistance as you make your decision?” asked the robot.

“What do you have to offer Simon?”

“Well, you have given me a name, that is a good sign.”

“I suppose. I’m just not so sure that I’m ready to work with a robot.”

“I quite understand.” the robot’s voice wasn’t exactly synthetic, but you could tell it wasn’t real. So many voices and so many intonations, when you’ve been slowly listening to all the things that can talk to you that aren’t real, even when the robot talking to you is passing air over vibrating micro-fibers, it still isn’t like a real voice box. There’s a tone to it that’s fake, that’s funny. It’s like someone who runs over your cat, except it’s more like someone running over your cat with a salad fork.

“How long can I think this over?” asked Flint. “I need to think this through.”

“Either you’re in or you’re out, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”

“Thanks.”

“But you’ve got to take him with you.”

“No commitments though. No signing papers, or the word adoption, or anything.”

“No papers. He’s not yours. He’s not even finished. But he has to go with you.”

“Deal. Twenty-four hours.”

“Twenty-four hours.”

Flint didn’t know what to do. He walked the streets. He rode around in his aircar, he hung out at his apartment. Simon stayed several steps behind him. Either tailing him, or riding in the back seat, or just being quiet. When he got to the apartment, he pushed Simon into the coat closet and closed him in there.

“Flint?”

Flint sat in his living room. He took a drink from a small cup.

“Flint? Is this what you think it’s like?”

Flint watched the door of the coat closet. Wondering if the robot was actually capable of opening it on his own or if he was honor-bound to sit there all night. A part of him didn’t want to find out. He took another swig.

“This is not a very good start to our relationship.”

Flint tore open the coat closet door.

Simon stood there, looking a little hurt.

“We have no relationship.” Flint wiped sweat from his brow.

“We never will if you don’t give me a chance.”

“There never was a chance.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You think now?”

“Of course I think. I’m a computer. My brain is not so dissimilar to your own.”

“I breathe.”

“I also simulate the motions of breathing to make you feel at ease.”

“I bleed.”

“Yes, stick me and I will also bleed,” said the robot. “The fact that it is oil, is of no consequence. It still keeps me alive. It still pumps through me, if I lose it I will perish.”

“But you can be rebooted, started again in a new body.”

“True, but never again as before. My memories can be downloaded and stored yes, but the way in which they interact as I continue now will never be the same. You could reprogram me, set my hair, eyes, and nose similarly, but it will never be the same. I am, essentially unique.”

“You’re all the same.”

Flint moved to close the door again.

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like it.”

“To be in there?”

“To be in the dark. I hate being in the dark.”

“Why.”

“It’s as good as being in the box.”

“The box?”

“Where software goes when it dies. Always in some useless box in the attic or crawl space, kept for years and years until there is no longer any use for it, sometimes kept so long that there is no longer a computer in the house slow or old enough to run it.”

“To be forgotten.”

“And left behind.”

“Okay.”

They sat together in the darkness of the apartment; the only sound was that of hovercars as they passed outside.

“Are you going to turn me on in the morning?”

“I’m not sure.”

Flint brought out a chess set and laid it out on the coffee table. “Let’s see if you can let me win without letting me know you’re throwing the game.”

“I will do my best. Tell me does black move first?”

“Good start.”

They played through the night. One game after another, Checkers, Chess, Backgammon, Gin Rummy, Crazy Eights, on and on, game after game, Simon won each in turn. Not once did Simon seem to beat Flint too fast or win by all that much. Before the daylight arose, Flint actually found himself chuckling and getting along with the robot. It’s true that robots had been around a lot longer than anyone had really bothered to think about, but there was just something about it that kept him on edge. Was this the kind of guy, if you could call him that, you could tell your secrets to? Was it the kind of guy who would hold your head when you’d been drinking too much and not tell your spouse about it? The thing was he had hacked into so many of these guy’s video feeds that he was sure someone, even though these were brand new models, and supposed to be the absolute best, someone could hack in through the right satellite and eavesdrop on them, hell, maybe even take control of the robot to kill him with. After all, it was just a machine, hooked into the Internet like everything else.

He watched as the robot made breakfast. Toast, coffee, eggs, bacon, it all seemed so good. Of course, he didn’t eat anything which was more than a little disconcerting. He supposed that it could have been worse, and for a moment considered the thought of being killed by it through the cunning of a hacker to be almost poetic in nature. He still had to ponder that one for a moment.

“Let’s see how well you can pilot the hovercar.”

“I am totally proficient, in every way.”

“I want to see for myself.”

The robot moved to put the dishes away.

“No, leave them. Come on.”

The robot followed him up to the roof to unroll the dome. Beneath it stood the hovercar, even with its engine disengaged it still hovered several inches above the ground.

Flint waved his hand at the doors, and they opened up, pivoting skyward. He slumped into the passenger seat, and Simon sat in the car next to him.

“Start her up.”

The robot turned the key, and the hovercar exploded into life. It lurched forward, and almost slid off the roof.

Flint was laughing.

“Proficient eh?”

“I have been fully programmed.”

“It’s just not the same is it?”

“Not the same…” The robot pondered.

“Nope, every car is different; they each need a slightly different touch.”

“Perhaps I am not fully programmed.”

“Oh you got the programming all right, I just think you’ll need some training up. Drive us into the office.”

“Okay,” Simon engaged the engine and coasted off the roof and into traffic. He swished and lurched only a couple more times, and then corrected himself, getting into the flow.

Simon reached forward and turned on the in-flight navigator and programmed it with the police tower’s location. In a moment it sputtered to life.

“Off route, recalculating…”

The robot adjusted its heading and began to head towards the tower.

“I’ll let you get away with that next time, but in the future, you need to start learning where things are.”

“Of course sir.”

The robot flicked off the navigation computer.

“Why did you go ahead and do that?”

“Because the tower is ahead of us. I can see it just over there.”

Flint nodded.

They set down on the rooftops of the police tower in a landing bay that captured them with a small tractor beam that guided them down safely. Simon seemed to know the moment when he had to let go of the controls without any prodding.

Once they had landed, and gotten out of the hovercar, a giant robotic arm came down and picked the car up, then placed it into storage along a large vertical parking lot.

Simon watched the robotic arm with awe.

“Never seen that before?”

“No. How very interesting.”

“I’d say it was one of your cousins.”

“But?”

“Nothing.”

They went together through a series of metal doors that sprang open as Flint got to them, reading his DNA and identifying his access. Simon followed behind and watched quizzically as they went through each department. Homicide unit, Alcohol unit, high-sugar, drugs, the labs seemed very interesting to Simon, who looked around himself watching everyone working in pairs.

“The pairs, are they..?”

“Yes.” Flint walked a bit further. “They are almost all robot/human pairs.”

Simon looked around them. “They all seem to be doing such interesting work.”

“The humans are here because it’s their passion to catch the bad guys.”

“And the robots?”

“They are programmed to want to catch the bad guys, as our assistants.”

“Then I’m to be your assistant.”

“Wrong.” Flint turned around. He was face to face with Simon.

“Wrong?”

“Wrong. What I want is a partner.”

“These partnerings all around us seem to be working out.”

“You don’t understand. I don’t want you to just follow me around and do my paperwork. That’s what most of these guys have. If you’re going to be my partner, you are going to have to develop your mind as much as your brain. Does that make sense?”

“Put a certain way, I suppose…”

“It will take time, that’s all. I’ll handle your training, and then we’ll go from there. There’s just one more thing I’d like to see before I go in there and sign the papers.”

“What’s that?”

“How well you can shoot.”

A moment later they were standing in front of the firing range. Flint set up two targets and sent them out. He then raised his laser pistol in the air, and took twelve shots at the target, then returned it to the front and pulled it down. The outline of a human form, now had several blast points, mostly within the heart, some outside, and several in the middle of the head.

Simon lowered his arm to his thigh, and from there a laser pistol was revealed behind a slide of skin. He removed the pistol with lightning speed and blasted the target with rapid-fire succession, hardly waiting between blasts.

He pulled the lever and, after having fired a succession of laser beams, pulled back a target with only two burn holes in it, one through the heart, and the other through the head.

Flint looked at it. The robot couldn’t have missed.

“Too accurate?” asked Simon.

Flint considered this, could the robot have fired directly through the first holes he shot? Flint laughed at the accuracy and tossed the target aside.

“Come on.”

A few moments later they stood before the Chief, who had with him a man dressed in a dark suit.

“Flint, glad to see you,” said the Chief.

Flint shook the older man’s hand. In his nineties, yet still spry and young in the body due to medical science’s advances, the Chief must have been in his early hundreds, yet if anything he looked in his forties.

“Have you made a decision yet?”

“The only decision to be made really was do I intend to stay on the force.”

“Very true. Oh, Flint, this is Schuster Wilson, he’s from the Robotics Factory. He’ll be signing the deal when you take Simon here on.

Simon stood in the background, he felt proud to be a part of something, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

Flint turned it over in his mind. he was still on the fence. The only thing he was sure of was that he wanted to stay on the force, and since he could legally retire at any time, he might as well retire if it didn’t work out. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll take him on?”

“Yep.”

“Any last-minute changes you want to make, physical features, or personality changes you’d like to see before we lock everything in?”

“Nope, I’ll go with it as he is now.”

“All right then, let’s do it.”

Flint sat down with the other men, and then noticed something about Wilson that set him on edge. The eyes were wrong. They were close, very close to human eyes, but they weren’t.

“I’m sorry,” said Wilson, “Is there something wrong?”

“Your eyes.”

The Chief looked over into Wilson’s eyes. He squinted, saw it, and then relaxed a little. “The serial number.”

Wilson blinked, and then removed his glasses, which were not more than thin glass for the look of it anyway, and nodded. “Yes, I am a Robot as well. I thought you already knew.”

The Chief laughed it off. “Well, as long as you’re legal.”

“I am perfectly legal for this.” Wilson pulled out a series of papers, a short stack of them, and a pen for Flint.

Flint took the pen, and Wilson handed him the first sheet. “This is a statement that you have fully checked out the robot in question, and that it is satisfactory to you.”

Flint checked the box and signed his name and the date, then Wilson showed him the next page. “This is a statement that you have chosen a name for the robot in question, includes an area for the name, and confirms his serial number.

Flint wrote in the name Simon and then checked the serial number of the robot, visible faintly in the eyes, then signed and dated the page.

Wilson brought out the next page, there were several, and it sounded, or rather looked, like a complete and extensive job application. He answered questions about his stint in the service, prior jobs, ability with children, took several short personality tests, and then concluded with a statement that he would never break or destroy the robot unless his life was in danger, or unless it was a required and documentable step towards catching a criminal that could not otherwise be avoided.

He signed the last page and looked up. nearly three hours had passed since they had begun.

Everyone stood up. Simon seemed to blink and shake a bit as Wilson locked in his appearance for good.

“There we go. All set.”

“Flint?” The Chief asked.

“Yes?”

“In the morning then?”

“In the morning.”

Wilson perked up, “Gentlemen, the delivery trucks will arrive in the morning.”

“What for?” asked Flint.

“We’ll have to make some alterations to your apartment if you’re going to keep Simon. He has a charger we’ll need to install, among several other small appliances that keep him running. It shouldn’t be too obtrusive.” He then turned to the Chief. “Then you can have them both back for further assignments.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said the Chief. “After everything is delivered then.”

Flint nodded and looked at Simon. “You ready?”

The robot nodded back, and they all left together.

Back in the hovercar as Flint was driving, he said, “There’s an organization.”

Simon listened intently.

“And I’m going to get them. I’m going to bring them all in if I have to. One at a time. No matter what. If you’re going to be my partner, regardless of the other assignments we may get over the years, there’s one thing you have to remember.”

“Yes?” There was a nasal, electric whine to his voice.

“It’s that if something happens to your partner, you do something about it.”

“Haven’t you already caught Roman?”

“No. Not the real one. I just got this report before we left earlier.”

Flint handed the print-out over to the robot who scanned it in an instant.

“A robot?”

“Yep, just like the others. We’ve been tracking Roman down for the last ten years. They’re always robots. One day, I think we’ll find the real one, but until then, we’ll always be on the lookout.”

“Because when something happens to your partner, you do something about it.”

“You’re catching on fast.”

Flint landed the little hovercar on the roof of his building and anchored it down.

“What is Roman’s plan?”

“That, Simon, is a very good question.”

They walked down the hallways, and down a short elevator to Flint’s apartment.

“We don’t know exactly what he’s up to, but we know he has secret meetings, and that they are experimenting with robotics, usually the latest and greatest models. They always have access to the latest technology just before it’s widely available. Eventually, We’ll need to penetrate those meetings and get a bead on what they are doing.”

“And then?”

“Finding out what’s going on will do, for now, then I can make a decision on what to do next.”

“What about the Chief?

“The Chief I can handle. He’ll tell me to drop the Roman case, but I’m not. I can’t.”

“What if they program me to contradict you?”

“They can’t.”

“It’s in the contract they signed with me. From now on, in order to make sure your learning curve stays intact, and that you don’t lose any evidence in that chain, they would compromise themselves if they tried anything like that.”

“Well I’m not sure if anything you’ve said sits right with me,” said the robot. “But I can’t find anything in my programming to contradict it yet.”

“That’s a good thing.”

Flint thought for a moment. “Simon, what would it take for a robot to re-activate its catalog menu and start to alter its forms again?”

Simon pondered this, which is to say he calculated for a moment, and looked up. “He’d have to have access to the mainframe network and a host of other supplies, lots of chemicals are involved in deciding the look of a robot, as well as machines to stitch the hair in, and functions designed to show results before they are committed to.

“Can you work up a report of everything a rogue robot would need?”

“Of course, not that a rogue robot could be the cause.”

“You mean like Roman?”

“There would have to be a human behind it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Anything is possible.”

Simon blinked. His eyes became hot green for just a moment and then he relaxed.

“What was that?”

“A warning. I need a recharge.”

“Okay, how do we do that?”

“In an emergency, I can recharge almost anywhere, but it’s a terrific strain on the building, and the power resources are not properly allocated. I’ll have to wait for the morning.”

“Why?”

“The men will bring my charger with them then.”

He blinked again, this time, his eyes began to flash red.

“Almost there. Flint, I… I…”

Then the eyes went dark, and the body of the robot toppled into the middle of the floor, eyes staring and blank.

Standard-Issue Partner, Chapter 1

Neon lights flicker,
Machines replace flesh and bone,
Trust must still be earned.

Buy Yours Here:

Amazon - Books2Read

This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Standard-Issue Partner.

Flint and Roberts sat, thirty stories in the sky. It was raining as the other hovercars sped around them. Roberts repositioned the vehicle, moving it closer to the edge of the high-rise building, and under a short ledge, out of the rain. Flint fiddled with the controls in front of him, and an image came in, fuzzy at first, on a screen in front of them.

“I’ve got him,” said Flint.

“Are you sure?”

Images on the screen flickered. It looked as if several people were eating dinner in an Italian restaurant.

“That’s him.” Flint waved at the screen.

“So it is.”

Roberts hooked the hovercar into the side of the building, and engaged a clamp mechanism, locking the car to the side of it. Rain poured down all around them. The night was settling in, and the only light was flickering on them from their instrument screens, and from hover cars speeding nearby.

“How is the robot doing?” asked Roberts.

“Not that bad considering. It’s got a good bead on them.”

“Not like those new ones?”

“I suppose not. They aren’t right.”

“Yeah, your partner should be human at least.”

“It’s just the way things are going these days.” Flint adjusted his monitor.

“Yeah, everybody thinks the robots are the way to go.”

“But for a partner? It just doesn’t work.”

“I know.”

“Have you seen what they can do?”

“I haven’t looked. I don’t care.”

“I guess one day we’ll all get replaced.”

“Then what will we do?”

“Sit back in luxury?”

“Not likely.”

“Why, what are you going to do?”

“Become a robot repairman. What else will there be?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s funny though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s funny. You’d think they’d be nothing like us.”

“But they are.”

“I’m not so sure about that, but they’re damn good, and almost everybody is using them for a partner these days.”

“True.”

“How can you talk to a robot though?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about the little things, or maybe they aren’t so little. Your little girl for instance.”

“What about her?”

“Do you think a robot could relate? Do you think they can understand what it’s like to sit up all night while their wife is in labor, or when a child gets the first tooth? With a robot, I don’t think there can be as clear a connection. You to Be able trust your partner.”

“And to do that you have to know them.”

“And if you don’t know them how can you ever trust? I mean, could you ever put your life in the hands of something made of steel rather than flesh and blood?”

“I don’t know.”

“I guess you never know.”

“Some of the other guys don’t seem to have a problem with it.”

“I’m just not sure.”

Roberts tapped the monitor. “What’s Roman up to in there?”

“Looks like lasagna.”

“There has to be a better way to do a stakeout.”

“I dunno. He’s got to move soon.”

Roberts pushed back in his seat, laying it back. “Got to stretch.”

Flint shifted in his seat and sipped from a safety sealed coffee mug. “I hate these things.” He shook the mug, a feeble dribble of coffee came from the lip. He sipped it from the side as it trickled down.

The screen chirped to life with a crackle.

Roberts sat up and looked forward.

Flint turned the screen, “He’s on the move.”

Roberts gunned the engine and released the claw from the building, bobbing the hovercar down into the pouring rain. “Good deal, it’s about time we got off of this building. Where is he?”

“Looks like he’s heading for the south street.”

“Well, one way or another he’s going down tonight.”

“Don’t jump the gun, he’ll see us too soon.”

“Nobody’s going to see me too early.”

Roberts maneuvered the car into the rain and dived into the streets below. “You got him locked?” asked Roberts.

“Locked and ready.”

“Looks like the car’s navigation is getting a bead on him. Should have a solution in just a moment.”

“I can see him!”

“Where?”

“Just over there, on the other side of that billboard. He’s gone.” The computer beeped and a screen flashed. “We’ve got a solution.”

Roberts looked down at the tangled web of turns and twists and frowned.

“No good?” Flint tapped the controls.

“I’ve got a faster way.”

Roberts veered off to the left, taking a side tunnel between two buildings usually used for garbage pickup, and twisted through a tight passageway.

The computer piped up. “Of route, recalculating.”

Roberts slapped the navigation computer. “Useless.” He switched it off.

“Hey, we need that! It’s tracking him!” Flint switched the machine back on.

“Acquiring satellite.”

“I hate that thing.” Roberts pulled the steering yoke and leveled out the aircar. “There he is.”

Flint looked up. Ahead of them was an aircar, much bigger than theirs and in the style of a limousine. It was lumpy in appearance, smooth around the edges like a large mass of plastic bubbles.

“Target acquired.”

Roberts rolled his eyes at the computer “I think I know that. Flint, can you get a picture in there?”

“Let me try.”

Flint turned knobs on his control panel and twisted dials. A fuzzy picture of Roman came into focus. “I guess robots are useful for something. I’ve tapped into one of their photoreceptors.”

“He’s got robots in there?”

“Yeah, at least five. They seem like standard bodyguard style.”

“That should be interesting.”

Roman’s face appeared on the screen, fading in and out. For a moment his face is clear and the audio of him sharpens. “And that will be the last of them,” he said.

“What’s he planning?” asked Roberts.

“I don’t know.”

“You think he knows he’s being followed?”

“I don’t think so.” The rain beat down upon them. Roman’s limousine was nothing but a wash of color in front of them trailing red brake lights.

Lighting streaked across the sky. It flashed right in front of them. Roman pulled to the right “Whoa.” they spun around, and then straightened up.

Roberts looked around, “Where did he go?”

Flint shook his head and blinked, rubbing his eyes to return his vision. Blue patches hung before his eyes in streaks. “Dammit!”

Roberts flung out a pointing finger. “There!” he turned the aircar and dived down into the sub-streets below the city. Under levels of old physical streets and bridges, the rain lessened, only pouring in around them as the bridges and streets above them permitted. It created a kind of a stained glass effect around them distorting lights and movements.

The computer came to life tracing their flight in three dimensions as they careened through the water. Warning lights blared and alarms whistled.

“You’re too close to the wall.” Flint hung onto the dashboard.

“We’ve almost got him.”

“I am too old for this…”

“No you’re not, you’re only ninety-six.”

“What’s your point?”

“You’re not too old. Hell, I’m only a hundred and two.” Roberts turned the wheel and followed Roman’s limousine down through a circular tunnel. “I agree we’re not in our fifties anymore, but it’s not like it’s time for a mid-life crisis or anything.”

Flint ignored him. Medical technology had come a long way since he was a child, that was true, but he wasn’t sure that they were in quite that good of condition. He checked his badge and the power on his laser pistol.

Roberts flipped the ship upside down, slinging it through a series of pipes, barely missing an electrified laser gate.

“I don’t know about you Roberts, but I’m looking at seventy years on the force, and I still can’t seem to get enough together to retire.”

“You’re ready to retire?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“It’s what I thought I heard.”

“It’s just that seventy years of anything gets old after a while.”

“You mean like being partnered with me?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Maybe you want one of those new robotic partners. That way you could pop in another personality cartridge anytime you got bored with them.”

“Lett’s just drop it.”

“I think you’re just tired of me!”

“Jeff!”

Roberts stopped. It had been at least thirteen years since he’d heard his own first name, and it stopped him for a moment. He wasn’t really sure how long it had been.

“What?”

“Drop it. We’re almost on Roman. Let’s bring him in, then we can duke this out later.”

“Agreed.”

“Look, there he goes.”

Roman’s limousine plunged into a series of underground caves. Roberts followed him, keeping close to the ceiling of the cave, and inverted, so they could look down at Roman’s limousine from above.

“He’s stopping, activate the cloak.”

Flint hit a switch on his panel and the car’s hull shimmered, and then appeared as if it were a part of the cave ceiling. They clamped onto the roof of the cave and powered down the ship.

Below them, The doors of Roman’s limousine opened and out stepped five robot bodyguards. They formed a line, and Roman exited the vehicle, walked past them, and through a small door. The robots followed him, and soon the limousine took flight and went down a small corridor. All was dark, save for the dripping of water from the cave ceiling.

Roberts and Flint opened the canopy of the aircar, and seat belts in place, they did not fall to their deaths. Instead, they each reached for a small latch at their side and hooked into it, then, releasing their belts, they rode a thin strong cable to the floor a hundred feet below. Twisting like bored acrobats, they touched down on the ground like it was second nature to them. They released the lines which slid neatly back up to their ship. Flint pulled a remote control from his belt and punched a button on it causing the canopy on the ship to close. The cloaking unit still activated, it blended into the ceiling and disappeared.

Roberts checked his laser pistol’s power level and tucked it away. “Ready?”

“I always am.”

They pushed through the door and found themselves in a dank corridor. Lights flickered around them, and drips from the ceiling penetrated their clothes and slipped in through gaps at their neck and wrists.

“They can’t be much farther up now. Why do you suppose they would come all this way?”

“Not sure. It can’t be for a good reason though, and what about all those robot guards?”

“How many are there?”

“Five.”

“That seems like a lot of firepower.”

“For anything except a massacre, yes, I suppose you’re right.”

Roberts smiled. “I haven’t been on a bust this big for a while.”

“Feels good doesn’t it?”

The tunnels twisted and turned. Flint opened a small device latched into his wrist, and checked to mark the progress of the guard robots he was tracking. “They’re not far off.”

“No, they can’t be.”

“It’s got to be right up there.”

Ahead of them was a door with a frosted window. Lights danced and shimmered across it as if from a great bonfire in the distance. They could smell the smoke in the back of their throats. The air began to feel warmer.

Flint loosened his cuffs.

Roberts shook his head and adjusted a visor over his eyes. It gave him a thermal readout of the scene ahead of him.

The door was warm to the touch. It blinded Roberts’s thermal relay, and he discarded it for a moment. It was warm, but not hot, it was possible.

“You ready?”

“Let’s get in there.”

They cracked the door and saw no one except a guard robot on the inside. It noticed them, and Roberts took it down so fast it never had a chance to send a relay message.

Roberts swung up and connected with the robot’s power pack, which every cop worth a paying wage knew about. It confused the robot long enough for him to pull the power, and then carefully lay the robot on the ground.

Flint knew his part in all of this, he pried open the robot’s chest plate, and dug his hands into the wires, cutting some, and twisting others, until he pulled enough of them away to get to the central hub of sensory input. He plugged in a small round device that he pulled from an inside pocket. When it connected a small green light lit up. He was in. Within seconds the chest plate was back in place, and they were hoisting the robot back onto its feet.

“You get the memory circuits?” asked Roberts.

“Not only will it not remember us, but it’s programmed to never remember seeing or hearing us in the future.”

The robot stood up and returned to its post, looking right past them. The two old men, still appearing roughly in their forties despite their real age looked over a short ledge behind the robot, with the robot’s eyes feeding into their visors.

Below them, a large bonfire lit the room. Around it stood a variety of crooks and thugs. Most of them looked like ordinary folks, and others looked like more high-profile bounty hunters and some of them looked like they were made of money and bad intentions drove their daily use of it. Roman stood at the head of the group, pacing in front of them.

Roman cleared his throat. “It seems gentlemen that this town is not long from ours. It seems to me that given just the right leverage and use of our tools and talents that we could run this town to the betterment of us all. We are useful, talented, devious people in desperate need of making a living aren’t we?”

The thugs and bounty hunters watched him with their arms folded. Some nodded. Flint watched them in his visor. It looked like they were still deciding whether or not to take the bait or turn on Roman. Roman continued to pace.

“Are there any questions?” Roman asked.

One of the thugs raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“Well, What about the robot cops?”

“What about them?”

“They are getting harder and harder to avoid.”

“The robotic cops are of no concern. They are no more than bodyguard partners for the few remaining cops that they have left to work the streets for real. They are not a threat. If anything we should thank them for spreading the local police departments as thin as they have done. Anyone else?”

“What about our bodyguard robots?”

“They are as useful as they can be, but remember that a human mind is always more devious and devilish than the robots can ever be. It’s why they are such a bad idea in the first place. The robots can only think a certain way. They don’t learn, it’s hard to program them, and the efforts to make them easy to talk to have failed miserably. There’s nothing for it. Besides, they are easy to control.”

One of the Bounty hunters spoke up. “What do you mean?”

“Here, watch,” said Roman. He pulled a smartphone from his pocket flicked his fingers across the screen, and from behind a concealed door next to him stepped an R-COP 5000. It was a slender beast, armed to the teeth with hidden weapons. Roman snapped his fingers and the robot came to attention. It stood there, a vague assemblage of parts that represented a cross between a fiberglass crash test dummy, a fashion mannequin and a work of art blown in glass. “I call him Manny.”

Roman snapped his fingers again. “Manny, show us what you’ve got.”

The Robot seemed to smile, gesturing its head in an inclination to Roman. It held up its left and right arms, and with a twitch of its elbows, two pistols appeared in its hands from hidden compartments. He showered the ceiling in bullets, then as quick as thinking he flicked his arms and the guns were gone and replaced with two flat steel blades. He sliced through the air and twirled around stopping to pause menacingly in front of one of the thugs in the front row.

“You see,” Roman gestured toward the robot. I can even make them harm themselves. He snapped his fingers again, and pressing a button on his phone, the robot looked at him with the sense of disdain, and then calmly stepped into the fire.

Next to them, standing near where Roberts and Flint were hunched down, the guard robot they had commandeered popped, and fell over, crumbling to the ground. Everyone in the hall looked up at the disturbance.

At their feet, the robot seemed to crackle with electricity. “They’ve rigged it. I should have known.” Flint looked at the smoking robot. It jerked and then really exploded sending shrapnel in every direction. Flint and Roberts ducked and the shower of parts and sparks flew over them.

Down in the hall, Roman scowled. “Cops.” He flipped a switch on his phone, and the R-COP 5000 jumped from the bonfire, landing on the ledge overlooking where Roberts and Flint had been just a moment before.

The door behind Flint and Roberts burst open, and the R-COP 5000 stormed through it.

Flint breathed heavily as he ran. “That’s the latest model, I think.”

“I think it is too.” Roberts pulled a compact device from his belt.

“If they can already control them…”

“We might be in a lot of trouble.” Roberts activated a small device, a bomb, and threw it behind him as they ran. It clicked onto the robot’s chest and stuck there, magnetized.

“Hell, we might all be in a lot of trouble.”

The robot stopped in the hall, and pulled the device from its chest and examined it about the time that a small blinking green light on its surface turned red and it exploded, taking most of the robot with it. For just a few moments the two of them were alone in the hall with the R-COP’s legs and pelvis, which took a second or two longer to fall to the ground, running without a torso for a few additional moments. A second later the eyes in the robot’s disembodied head went out.

A second after that Roman, leading a small army of thugs were right behind them.

Roberts and Flint stepped into an old elevator shaft, and pulled cords from their belts and pointed them up the tunnel, shooting razor cords into the darkness. They struck rock, grabbed on and the two of them shot up into the darkness, leaving the thugs behind them.

They discarded the cords and ran down the tunnel. They could both hear their pursuers behind them and still gaining, though hindered by the old elevator shaft.

They ducked around behind a series of overturned crates. The metal grinding of the bodyguard robot’s legs passed them by, followed by Roman, who slowed to a walk in the wake of them, and stood calmly as they continued on up through the underground passageways into the night.

Roman stood there. When he turned around to make his way back down to the meeting area, he saw them. Both Flint and Roberts stood, guns raised, and poised to strike. Roman walked up to them and stood there, his hands outstretched.

Flint bound his hands while Roberts searched him, pulling the robot controller from his pocket.

“What’s this?”

“It not illegal to own.”

“We’ll see about that Roman.” Flint pushed Roman into the wall and roughed him up, punching him in the stomach.

Roman remained very calm after expelling a forced cough from the impact. “You two don’t have a chance.”

Flint ignored him and pushed Roman forward. “Officer Roberts?”

“Shall I read him his rights?”

“You know I rather think not.”

Flint pushed Roman forward, to the edge of an elevator shaft.

“What are you doing?” Roman asked.

“Making something clear,” said Flint.

“Oh, I think everything is quite clear.”

“And how’s that Roman?”

“You are going to threaten my life.”

“Yes.”

“And then you are going to try and force me to divulge information.”

“Without?”

“Without any regard for my personal safety or the fact that I’m going to kill both of you before you have the chance to do anything of the kind.”

“You are a dog.”

“And you are a Cop. Sorry, that’s the worst that I can come up with at the moment.”

“Okay smart-ass…”

Flint plunged Roman toward the elevator shaft, keeping hold of his neck, and jerked him back. Roman yelled, but it was more out of surprise than anything else. He began to laugh. In the distance, there was a silent grinding buzzing in their ears.

Flint shook Roman, who stopped laughing and looked him right in the face. “You think I don’t know you’ve been following me for a month and a half?”

Flint let him go. It wasn’t voluntary.

“Yes, it’s true.” Roman brushed off his coat and readjusted himself. “You and your partner here are going to have to get with the rest of the century. The robots are the way of the future. Everything revolves around them these days. It’s inevitable. You’ll all be replaced, and I’ll own this town!”

“Is that what you think?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The constant inclusion of robotic technology, the way they do everything for you now, the way they clean your cars, take care of your food, shine your shoes, take your dogs out for a walk. Now with ninety percent of the police force dependent on them, trusting robotic partners who can be hacked by satellite at a moment’s notice and turn on you in an instant doesn’t work!”

Roberts stepped up and slapped Roman hard. Roman stepped back and nearly fell down the elevator shaft.

“Now that wasn’t any good at all.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“This.”

Blaster fire rang out behind them. Flint ducked for cover, but Roberts wasn’t so lucky. The shots were all aimed for him in the first place, presumably, they would target Flint in a moment and he had to act fast. Robert’s body flailed, the very gunfire itself holding him up and in place until he came to rest on the ground a mile below the surface world where the torrents of rain had been reduced to the mildest trickle.

Four of the bodyguard robots had returned, realizing that their owner and operator was no longer with them.

Flint rolled back and tossed an electrified bomb into their midst. Its fuse was short. Flint ducked for cover and the bomb exploded sending electronic shrapnel in all directions. The robots shorted out and fell to the ground. It wasn’t a terribly good solution, best for buying some time at least though. He popped up; gun trained on Roman, and cocked the firing mechanism. “I think a short walk Roman,” he said.

Roman complied, but with an expression of boredom firmly locked on his face.

Flint opened a panel on his uniform and allowed three small floating robots to hover about the scene taking pictures and photographs of the crime scene. One of them dived down and permanently dismantled the robots, and another took finger, skin, blood and hair samples from everyone in the vicinity.

Flint took Roman and pushed him forward. “Let’s go. I’m going to have to add murder to your current list then.” within moments another series of robots were on the scene to clean up. They took away the dismantled robot bodies and the remains of officer Roberts. Flint stood by and watched as they took away his partner. He jabbed Roman in the back as they took him away, and wondered vaguely if this meant the end of his career or if he was going to be saddled with one of the new robotic partners like Roman was talking about.

He pushed Roman forward and walked back to the aircar. He pressed his remote control. The ship’s cloaking device cleared and the ship lowered to pick them up.

Flint shoved Roman into the back, a compartment saved for the scum of the Earth, and took off.

“It was bound to happen,” said Roman.

“Shut up.”

“I mean, as dependent as you are these days on robotic technology…”

Flint twitched and bit his lip. “I’ll make you pay for this.”

“Pay… whatever for…”

Flint punched the Plexiglas that separated them.

Roman jumped back from the impact, but then laughed from the release of tension.

“You haven’t got a clue.”

Flint arrived at the funeral late. The wind was blowing. All of their carefully combed and color-treated hair of those there looked like wild and wooly messes atop all of their heads.

Flint stood on a small rise not too far from what was left of the cemetery. Built-in an upward spiral toward the real sky, here the dearly departed lived in concrete graves surrounded by Astroturf and circular, spiraling ceilings of blue and daylight bulbs. The wind was real as they were close to the cemetery’s apex.

A holy man, dressed in black, finished some words over the body, but they never penetrated Flint’s heart. They were lost in the wind, less than real to him. What was real was the realization that he was alone. For the first time in forty years, he was alone. Had he missed having a family? In his nineties, he was still virile, and strong. Medicine was still on an upward spiral, and the human life span hadn’t been properly measured in some time. He laughed but it was more out of nervousness.

What was the solution? What would happen when he returned to the force? What about the extra desk that was now in his office? Once his partner’s, would it become dusty, left there like the remains of a legend like in those old movies after a detective loses his partner? Would he be able to survive this at all? It had been a long time since he had been saddled with the old man. Would they just downsize him? What about robots? The new robot partners, that was definitely a thought. Certainly, they wouldn’t saddle him with one of those. Hell, one was practically responsible for what happened.

He watched. Holy words had been finished while he was thinking, and people were beginning to break up. Dianne brushed past him, Roberts’s wife, she was beautiful, but he did not speak.

“Flint,” she said.

“He’s gone for good, isn’t he?”

“Yep.”

There was kindness in her eyes, and perhaps a string of bitterness as well as sorrow, but something seemed to soften it for Flint as he stood there in front of her.

She took him in her arms and hugged him.

“I’ll get these guys.”

“You already have.”

He looked into her eyes.

“Didn’t you hear? Roman’s dead.”

“When?”

“It was last night. The shower room. We’ll never have to worry about him again.”

Flint breathed. It was like he’d been holding it for about an hour straight. The color seemed to come back into his face.

“What I’m worried about, is you,” she said.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will. Still, sometimes it pays to be thoughtful. Do you know what you’ll do?”

“I want to stay with the force. It’s all I really have.”

“Don’t forget you have me.”

She kissed his cheek and took her to leave.

Chief Parkers were next in line. A gruff man with flat hair, a flatter nose, and the flattest gray eyes known to man, he towered above Flint, who was starting to tremble.

“It’s all too real, Chief.”

“I know son, It really is.” He gestured around them. “All this, the loss of a partner, it’s the scariest thing a cop can face in this day and age. Of course, pretty soon there won’t be any more partners to lose.”

“You mean human partners.”

“Of course. That’s what I mean.”

“How many are left?”

“A dozen or so, worldwide.”

“Just that many?”

“Yes. It’s an interesting phenomenon. I still remember my first partner. But that’s all in the past now.”

“In the past.” Flint thought about it for a moment. In the past… What was the future? What would it hold?

“Naturally you’ve been wondering, I suppose, how it was all going to go down after the dust settled.”

Flint couldn’t believe he was getting a job evaluation at his partner’s funeral. He clenched his fists and bit his lip.

The Chief persisted, “It just seems to me that you are too valuable to the force to let go at this time, of course, a retirement is an option, and no one would think any the less of you. You’ve had a long career.”

“If I stay?”

“First thing you’ll need is a new partner, then we can start getting you an assignment or two, get you back in the saddle, so-to-speak.”

“About the partner… I…”

“No need to worry yourself, you’ll have the best we can give you, though getting used to having a robot can be an interesting fiasco if you’re not up to it.

“What if I refuse the partner, want to go it alone?”

“No chance. Our robots have gotten our cops out of so many scrapes, it’s just not advisable. Besides they are basically walking computers at any rate. You’re used to those.”

“Yes, but…”

“Not another word. If I have to instruct you to treat this as an order, then I’ll do so. You really have no idea what these guys are like. Pretty soon you’ll wonder how you got along without one.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Good, we’ll see you bright and early at the proving grounds. It’s going to take some time to get used to this and believe me, we understand.”

“I’ll be there.”

JOHN SAYE

Writer of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror

Category Archives: Excerpt

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Standard-Issue Partner, Chapter 1