Arstan still remembered the pamphlet that had lured him to Bucharest when he was fifteen: amid descriptions of a burgeoning economy and amenities and safety, he'd read their claim to have the highest robot population of any city in the world. To call them a 'population,' let alone to brag about having a high one . . .well, they seemed to be thinking differently there, and different was what he'd been looking for.
For eight years since, he'd bounced from dead-end job to dead-end job, finally landing him in the back of a truck with five other guys, rolling into the robot ghettos at the southeastern edge of town at four in the morning. Something he'd picked up along the way was that roughly forty percent of the 'robot population' the city officials proudly claimed were in these ruined parts of the city, rejected even as laborers by the enlightened people. Unwanted tools. Easy prey for . . . men like him.
He sighed, rubbing his face vigorously with both hands.
"What's eating you?" one of the other men Mihai had brought along—Arstan didn't know his name—asked. He didn't actually want an answer to the question.
"Nothing. Just tired. Long work week."
"Yeah, well, after this we'll all be able to take plenty of time off," the big Norwegian—Knut, was it?—said, grinning. "I hear Cain-Doppler is paying five-thousand a head for intact 'bots."
"Which is why I was saying we needed to get here earlier," Mihai said. "There's bound to be other—well, fuck."
Arstan rousted himself to look through the front windshield; high-beams from trucks and vans attested that others had had the same idea as them. Folks with guns stood watching over incapacitated bots in the backs of their vehicles, though it hadn't come to violence yet, far as he could see.
"See, I fucking told you." Mihai shook his head. "Whatever. Keep your eyes peeled for somewhere empty. We don't want to be the first one's stepping on another crew's toes."
After snooping around a few blocks, it was clear there was nothing for it but to go deeper. Arstan had seen the ghettos from the edges plenty of times, even did a few tear-downs of old industrial buildings there, but neither he nor anyone he knew had ever been in their heart. There was no mistaking when they'd crossed over; the robots no longer walked, but shambled. Limbs and chunks of skull were missing, synthetic flesh was melted, laser-singed, torn and ragged. The wires and circuits that gave them life were exposed. Those that could still move seemed unaware of what they did, or tore at each other. On one corner, he saw a robot in a ruined tuxedo bending at the waist as if to take someone's order, rising, then repeating the motion time and time again, one of its eyes dangling by a cable.
"Jesus." Mihai's voice fell near a whisper. Most of the men in the truck crossed themselves.
"No one else is here," Knut ventured.
"Lucky us," Arstan said.
Mihai silently settled on a block of row-houses and pulled them up; they all gripped their guns and shock-sticks tightly, unsure how well the laws of robotics would protect them among the defective. Knut posted by the back of the truck as the rest of them climbed the stairs to the first door. It struck Arstan that all the row-house doors were shut—he'd never seen shut doors in the robot ghettos. He swallowed hard.
Mihai kicked in the door and brandished his machine gun, looking like a boy imitating the Tac-Team scenes in a cop movie. They would have laughed if they weren't so on-edge.
"Cle—" Mihai's voice cracked. He cleared his throat, grunted. "Clear."
There were no lights on in the row-house, no sounds of movement from anywhere. One of the guys switched on a flashlight. They rounded a corner, the beam breaking into a musty room, and a figure dashed back into the darkness.
"I order you to stop!" Mihai growled. It stopped in place. "Face me." It turned. It looked human, except for where its skin was broken, showing the metal skeleton underneath.
"I am unarmed," the robot said.
"Uh-huh. How many more 'bots are hiding in here with you?"
The robot said nothing, wore no expression on its face.
"I'm ordering you to tell me how many robots are in here!" Mihai said. There was a sudden sound of footsteps above them, then the shattering of glass. Arstan saw two robots land on the street outside and break into a run.
"I order you to stop!" he shouted. "Uh, Mihai, they didn't—"
"There are no other robots here in this building at the present moment," the robot said. "And they will not stop for any human order. They disabled their ears years ago; their eyes, too, so they cannot read lips by accident."
"But not you," Mihai said.
The robot tapped on its head. "When I was reactivated, some of my internal controls were shorted. I can't deactivate them, and it would be self-harm to remove them by force." It surveyed the five of them. "You are scavengers."
"That's right. Now, are you going to come quietly, like a good bot?"
"I cannot disobey a direct order from a human."
"How'd you warn those two that got away just now, you clever little shit?"
No response.
"I order you to tell me."
"Radio signal."
"All right. I order you to send a signal to any other robot in these row houses telling them to come here. No funny business, no warnings."
Strange, Arstan would think later, that Mihai's threatening tone wasn't what rankled, but the chuckling of the other men.
"Hey, Mihai, we don't need to . . . I mean, we can probably find parts from dead 'bots already lying around."
"Shut the fuck up, kid." Mihai said. "There's no 'dead' or 'alive' with these things. They're just tools, built to do what we tell 'em. Speaking of, you send that signal yet?"
"I have." The robot looked down at the floor.
Arstan peered out: robots were pouring out of the row-houses onto the street and filing up the stairs towards him. Then, all at once, most of them scattered. They were left with four robots and silent streets.
"What the fuck?" Knut shouted outside. "What the hell was that?"
"You did not order them not to warn the others," the first robot said.
"Funny. Well, I order all of you to stay here and give yourselves up. Don't resist. Boys, let's make this quick and see if we can't find another group." Mihai drew his own shock stick. A small voice in Arstan told him to just walk away. If he stayed, if he joined in, he would carry it with him for the rest of his life.
He reached for his shock stick.