me in the long, bare compartment, a row of drowsy crash-test dummies.
I felt us come out of the Holland Tunnel and into the stop-and-go traffic of downtown. The robot in the driver’s seat was a good one, convincing enough to pass as human on casual inspection. It only had to drive and pay tolls and smile blandly at other drivers. It would never get out of the van at all, whereas the four in back would go with me into the bank.
The bank was in midtown, a small one, but adequate to my needs. I had gone as far as I could go on ingenuity and petty theft. I needed capital. And I needed contact with the world; I needed them to know about me. I felt the robot smoothly taking its lefts and rights on the way to the target, even honking the horn at a truck blocking the road up ahead.
I powered up the robots. Smart and tough, but they weren’t about to fall in love or apply for citizenship. They checked their stun guns; I checked my equipment. I crawled back to the rear door and seated myself. The van cut over to the curb and double-parked squarely in front of the glass double doors.
I kicked open the van’s rear door and stepped into the street. A light snow was falling, frosting the edges of things and darkening the asphalt. I had spent months designing and assembling the robots, sewing the costume, fabricating the equipment hanging from my belt. And now I was standing in the street in midtown Manhattan, squinting in the sudden light, midmorning traffic swerving around me, the crowd just beginning to react. It was 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, late January, and in the skyscrapers overhead office workers were just halfway through the morning’s work, rustling papers and chatting at their desks. I was twenty-four years old.
A burly man wearing a uniform was staring angrily at me through the window and pointing as if to say, Go away! There was a second of vertigo, a sick moment of nightmarish embarrassment. What was I doing? I ought to be up there with them; I ought to be at work. I was wearing a costume; I was a publicity stunt, an overgrown out-of-season trick-or-treater, or a schizophrenic. This was the moment of truth, worse than any crime fighter or secret weapon. My insides clenched.
I forced my legs to take me forward toward the bank’s heavy plateglass facade. Behind me, the robots were raising their concussion pistols, and my earplugs cut in automatically. The man standing just inside put up his hand, gesturing at me to stop, go away. That was the moment. I shook my head. Stop? Go away? No. Absolutely not. I felt an unfamiliar smile take hold on my face.
He raised his gun, too late. Because I didn’t have to stop. I grabbed the door and pulled so hard, it came off one of its hinges and hung there. I wasn’t going to stop and I wasn’t going to pay any damages and I wasn’t going to say sorry, because I wouldn’t have to do what anyone else said, ever again. The sonic went off behind me as I went through the door, and after that there was a whole lot more I wasn’t going to be paying for.
“Kneel!”
I pointed to the floor, and in a second the crowd was on its knees. Most of the bank crowd would be deaf for the next thirty seconds or so anyway, but I needed to look like I was giving orders. I looked up, to see I was holding the unconscious bank guard aloft by his shirt. I tossed him into a potted palm. It was only hours later that I got home and realized he’d shot me square in the chest. There was a bang as they breached the vault. Two robots were brandishing their pistols at the crowd while the rest shoveled bricks of currency into sacks. I had nothing to do but stride around the lobby looking menacing and in control, but it felt like an eternity.
I went on shouting. I screamed, although I don’t know what I said to them. I declared myself Emperor of Manhattan, America, the world. I was shaking. Outside, traffic had stopped. People across the street peered in at me.
I could hear sirens now, but the final
I felt us come out of the Holland Tunnel and into the stop-and-go traffic of downtown. The robot in the driver’s seat was a good one, convincing enough to pass as human on casual inspection. It only had to drive and pay tolls and smile blandly at other drivers. It would never get out of the van at all, whereas the four in back would go with me into the bank.
The bank was in midtown, a small one, but adequate to my needs. I had gone as far as I could go on ingenuity and petty theft. I needed capital. And I needed contact with the world; I needed them to know about me. I felt the robot smoothly taking its lefts and rights on the way to the target, even honking the horn at a truck blocking the road up ahead.
I powered up the robots. Smart and tough, but they weren’t about to fall in love or apply for citizenship. They checked their stun guns; I checked my equipment. I crawled back to the rear door and seated myself. The van cut over to the curb and double-parked squarely in front of the glass double doors.
I kicked open the van’s rear door and stepped into the street. A light snow was falling, frosting the edges of things and darkening the asphalt. I had spent months designing and assembling the robots, sewing the costume, fabricating the equipment hanging from my belt. And now I was standing in the street in midtown Manhattan, squinting in the sudden light, midmorning traffic swerving around me, the crowd just beginning to react. It was 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, late January, and in the skyscrapers overhead office workers were just halfway through the morning’s work, rustling papers and chatting at their desks. I was twenty-four years old.
A burly man wearing a uniform was staring angrily at me through the window and pointing as if to say, Go away! There was a second of vertigo, a sick moment of nightmarish embarrassment. What was I doing? I ought to be up there with them; I ought to be at work. I was wearing a costume; I was a publicity stunt, an overgrown out-of-season trick-or-treater, or a schizophrenic. This was the moment of truth, worse than any crime fighter or secret weapon. My insides clenched.
I forced my legs to take me forward toward the bank’s heavy plateglass facade. Behind me, the robots were raising their concussion pistols, and my earplugs cut in automatically. The man standing just inside put up his hand, gesturing at me to stop, go away. That was the moment. I shook my head. Stop? Go away? No. Absolutely not. I felt an unfamiliar smile take hold on my face.
He raised his gun, too late. Because I didn’t have to stop. I grabbed the door and pulled so hard, it came off one of its hinges and hung there. I wasn’t going to stop and I wasn’t going to pay any damages and I wasn’t going to say sorry, because I wouldn’t have to do what anyone else said, ever again. The sonic went off behind me as I went through the door, and after that there was a whole lot more I wasn’t going to be paying for.
“Kneel!”
I pointed to the floor, and in a second the crowd was on its knees. Most of the bank crowd would be deaf for the next thirty seconds or so anyway, but I needed to look like I was giving orders. I looked up, to see I was holding the unconscious bank guard aloft by his shirt. I tossed him into a potted palm. It was only hours later that I got home and realized he’d shot me square in the chest. There was a bang as they breached the vault. Two robots were brandishing their pistols at the crowd while the rest shoveled bricks of currency into sacks. I had nothing to do but stride around the lobby looking menacing and in control, but it felt like an eternity.
I went on shouting. I screamed, although I don’t know what I said to them. I declared myself Emperor of Manhattan, America, the world. I was shaking. Outside, traffic had stopped. People across the street peered in at me.
I could hear sirens now, but the final
Similar Books
