To Obey Read online

  Isaac Asimov’s

  I, Robot:

  to obey

  Also by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  I, Robot: To Protect

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © The Estate of Isaac Asimov, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Reichert, Mickey Zucker.

  Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot: to obey/Mickey Zucker Reichert.

  p. cm

  ISBN: 978-1-101-59908-2

  I. Title.

  PS3568. E476334I73 2013

  813’. 54—dc23 2013005138

  Designed by Alissa Amell

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  To Martin H. Greenberg,

  who personified kindness and fairness in life, in business, in friendships. Like a meteor, a brilliant inspiration who carved a path across the sky to illuminate so many others, his own life far too fleeting.

  We miss you, Marty.

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a mountain of thanks to Pat Rogers, Chief Warrant Officer 3, U.S. Marine Corps (retired), Sergeant NYPD (retired), who put up with a daily barrage of outlandish questions. Without his encouragement and assistance, this would be a far less accurate novel.

  Also thanks to Attila Torkos, for assistance with the Asimovian timeline and necessary adjustments, for his tireless dedication to the works of Isaac Asimov, and for keeping me on my toes. To Susan Allison, for professionalism, excellence, and knowing when to push. To Sheila Gilbert, the very definition of editing excellence, for superhuman patience and a kindness that rivals Marty’s.

  To Mark Moore (always), who helps in so many ways every single day.

  And, of course, to Isaac, Janet, and Robyn Asimov.

  Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

  —Isaac Asimov

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 1

  June 27, 2036

  Brilliant summer sunshine struck glimmers from the window rims and ledges of Manhattan Hasbro Hospital and lit up the bobbing signs of the usual horde of protestors. Susan Calvin walked stoically along the sidewalk with the other workers, visitors, and outpatients. A year of psychiatry residency had practically immunized her from their shouts, demands, and taunts; they had become background noise no more noticeable than the antiseptic odors of the corridors or the rumble of cafeteria chatter at all hours of the day. Except today. For reasons she could not wholly explain, Susan not only noticed the weaving, screaming protestors, but suffered a jab of annoyance at their presence. They defined chaos—their intentions myriad, their dress and demeanors spanning the gamut from timid insistence to scarlet-faced rage, their signs clashing not only visually but causally. One condemned euthanasia, while another demanded that tax dollars go to “real cases, not lost causes.” In the back, a sign read: PROCREATIVE BENEFICENCE BENEFITS CHILDREN while another, deeper in the crowd, touted, DESIGNER BABIES ARE A SIN.

  The last filled Susan with an eerie sense of déjà vu. Her thoughts straggled back to the first day of her internship, when the protesters had surprised her and intimidated many of the first-year residents. A young man carrying a sign with those words had tripped into her path, and she had shared a short and direct argument with him. Less than an hour later, the administrators had informed all of the brand-new doctors that speaking with protestors was strictly forbidden. Many of them had violent intentions and agendas, seeking any reason to spark a fight that might draw the attention of media to their cause.

  Susan quickened her pace, stepping through the mechanical doors that shooshed behind her, then opened again almost immediately for other entrants. Air-conditioning blasted into her face, a welcome relief from the sweltering crowd. The sights and smells of the hospital had become all too familiar in the past year. She rarely noticed them. Yet this sunny Friday, she did. The well-known odors of cleaners, sanitizers, and topical medications blended into a weird cacophony she could not ignore. The rows of connected seats drew her attention, and the banks of computer monitors flashed conspicuously around the periphery. She noticed the glass cases on the walls that held the quilts of a local artist, crafts on sale as a fund-raiser for the current crop of pediatric patients, and the usual display of Hasbro toys as they had evolved through the decades.

  Susan found herself having to consider her steps as she walked the long-known route to the psychiatry residents’ locker room. The journey past cafeterias and lawyers, ethicists and faculty doctors’ offices, even the rarely changing artwork covering every wall, seemed strange. It reminded her of her first day at Manhattan Hasbro, when she tingled with the excitement of a grand new adventure. Fresh out of medical school, she had not known what to expect, only that she intended to give her all to excellence and take advantage of every opportunity to become the best psychiatrist she possibly could be.

  Almost exactly a year had passed since that awesome and daunting day in 2035 when she had begun her career as a first-year resident, an R-1, at one of the largest and most progressive hospitals in the country. She had been a different person then, she realized, full of optimism and hope, worried the challenge might crush her or, worse, she would prove inadequate as a doctor, that some mistake she made would result in the death or suffering of an innocent patient.

  Now that seemed like such a guileless and foolish concern. In the past year, she had seen her fill of death and madness, of inexplicable emotions and tragedy. She no longer believed in poetic justice or happy endings. Life was a quiet crapshoot that sometimes bucked the odds, for good or ill, indiscriminately. Insanity, disease, misfortune came to the righteous and the sinners, the generous and the selfish, the good and the evil without distinction. Calamity followed no rules of fairness or justice.

  Susan stepped into the room, joining her fellow psychiatry R-1s. Their conversations flowed through and around her, u
nheard. She barely noticed the furnishings: the lockers built into all but one wall and personally decorated with names, comics, articles, and small toys; the cubbies affixed to the remaining wall; the tables and chairs that now held most of her peers; and a self-standing whiteboard with writing on it. Susan could scarcely summon the curiosity to look over its written contents, though it would determine her fate over the next year.

  The R-1 year had kept the thirty of them in rotating groups of three to six, supervised by at least one R-2, an R-3, and a faculty attending physician. Teamed with various peers, they spent two months each on the three inpatient units: the Pediatrics Inpatient Psychiatry Unit (PIPU), the Adult Psychiatry Unit (APU), and the Provisional Care Psychiatry Unit (PCPU). The first two catered to patients with long-term needs, while the third, affectionately called Limbo, was where patients were kept until the decision was made to place them in institutional care or onto one of the other units. The R-1s had also performed two months of outpatient psychiatry, a month on the Behavioral Neurology Unit (BNU), a month of clinical neurology, a month of general internal medicine, and a month on the Psychiatry Consultative Service.

  According to the whiteboard, as well as to the tips given from next year’s R-3s, the R-2 year consisted of a month as middle supervisor on each of the three inpatient units; two months of intensive outpatient experience, one at Manhattan Hasbro and the other at any one of several private clinics; a month on night rotation, serving the hospital from midnight to noon; two months in the emergency room; one month in a public dementia facility; one month in a public facility catering to developmental and intellectual disabilities; one month in an addiction facility; and the last month an open elective.

  Most of her peers’ discussions centered on the best order of performing those rotations. The coveted position was the night rotation, and whoever served it at the time earned the nickname “the Mole.” Though it was initially intimidating to find oneself the go-to psychiatrist for all nighttime problems and emergencies, it involved none of the boring routine and all of the most exciting moments of medicine. It was said that once an R-2 survived that most intense of the rotations, he gained a confidence and competence that made him a better and more self-assured doctor. The moment the Mole successfully finished his month, and they all did, his life changed forever. He gained the respect of the nurses, his peers, the R-3s, and the faculty. Whether this came from the observer or from a radiation of personal conviction was unclear. Most of the R-2s tried to get past the Mole phase as quickly as possible. It lightened the burden of every other rotation.

  Those not quite ready for the responsibility of Mole preferred to start with the open elective or the outside private outpatient clinic rotation. Those served as nice summer segues from the rigors of the R-1 year to the more responsible inpatient positions of the R-2. Some of the private clinics paid the residents cash under the table to encourage residents to choose them. The more patients the private practitioner saw, the more prestigious his clinic and the more money he made. The residents passed the information along to their younger peers, and the most popular outpatient sites either paid the most or had easygoing attendings and better hours.

  Over the past two weeks, as she completed her second rotation on the Pediatrics Inpatient Psychiatry Unit with four of her peers, Susan, along with the others, had fantasized about her ideal rotation order. Not that anyone was likely to get what he wanted, at least not exactly. The names got plucked out of a box in random order. Each picked a first-month rotation, except for the last person drawn, who got to choose his first two rotations. Then the choices went backward, so the first resident was last to choose his second rotation, but first, again, to choose the third.

  Now, Susan found, the excitement that had once suffused her had disappeared. She felt empty, dull, apathetic, and cold. While the others chatted with those they had befriended on earlier rotations, she stood alone, staring with unseeing eyes at a random locker. She had nothing to say to anyone, and she hoped no one would bother her.

  Then, suddenly, a hand snaked over hers. Warm air entered her left ear, accompanied by words she had learned to hate. “I know how you feel, Calvin. And I share the emotion.”

  Susan tensed, seized with the urge to deck the person who had dared to shatter her comfortable, self-inflicted silence. No one could possibly understand how she felt at that moment. Even she had no clue how to describe her current emotional state or even why it had descended so fully upon her at this time. She twisted her head toward the jerk, intending to give him a piece of her mind, only to find herself staring directly into the face of Kendall Stevens.

  Her fellow R-1 gave her a look so uncharacteristic of his joking self that it stole her breath and left her incapable of scolding. His dark eyes held a melancholy so deep, it might actually have exceeded her own. His broad lips were pursed, his jaw set, and his cheeks sagged. His ginger hair hung limply. Even the friendly splash of freckles across his face looked dim and lifeless. Instead, she squeezed his hand back tightly, realizing what she should have known all along.

  This day reminded her of her first day at Manhattan Hasbro Hospital as a bewildered medical-school graduate about to embark on a journey of infinite possibilities. It was also the day she had met her soul mate, Remington Hawthorn, a first-year neurosurgery resident. An image of him filled her memory, perfect in every detail: the mop of tousled dark blond curls; eyes like emeralds beneath prominent brows; the straight, generous nose; chiseled cheekbones; and fine lips. She had always felt safe in his strong arms, and he always seemed to know the right thing to say. Confident and capable, he had fully captured her heart and, nearly, finally, her virginity.

  Then Susan’s thoughts breeched the walls she had spent nearly a year building. Another image came to her mind’s eye, one she wished she could forget. She saw a mall guard lying still on the floor, another staggering to his feet, and her last image of Remington. Still dressed in his working polo and khakis, he was wrapped around a small, struggling figure whose hand was firmly planted on the detonator of a bomb. Then white light slammed through Susan’s memory, pain seemed to enwrap every part, and the odor of gasoline filled her nose so completely it seemed more a taste than a smell. The agony of that had haunted her longer than anything, the taste rising to her mouth in weaker moments, driving her to vomit.

  Susan shook the thought from her mind for at least the thousandth time. It had not bothered her in more than two months, yet it rushed back with the same raw intensity, not the least diminished by time or effort. Remington Hawthorn was a hero. His self-sacrifice had saved Susan, one of the security guards, and possibly several patrons of the mall as well. Susan loved him with every rational part of her being. But she had irrational parts, too, and, rarely, they won out. At those times, she hated him for surrendering his life, for taking away the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her, for leaving her to suffer the guilt of surviving the catastrophe he had not. The pain cut too deep for anyone to bear.

  Only Kendall could truly understand what she had suffered. Standing atop the mall roof with a pistol, he had had the opportunity to shoot the bomber before she even entered the mall. Instead his finger had frozen on the trigger. Only since the incident had Susan done enough research to know that even trained army snipers would have had difficulty successfully carrying off such a shot. A man who had taken a vow to do no harm, trained only to heal and help the sick and injured, who had never fired a gun, had had little to no chance of striking a four-year-old target intent on murder. Likely, Remington had positioned Kendall there solely to keep him out of harm’s way.

  But Kendall did not see it like that. The fellow psychiatry R-1 blamed himself for the death of Susan’s greatest love, felt responsible for destroying the lives of friends, despite Susan’s attempts to soothe him. She had liked Kendall before the incident. She appreciated his quick wit, his intelligence, and his ability to find humor in almost any situation. After the explosion, when she had physically recovered, she sha
red a camaraderie with him that only those who have faced death together can. Unfortunately, their grueling schedules and the need to spread the R-1s around in different groupings had made it difficult for them to spend much time together since the tragedy.

  Dr. Mirschaum, a squat woman with thinning blond hair, a prodigious nose, and a small café au lait spot on her left cheek, entered the room. An associate professor who specialized in clinical research on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Dr. Mirschaum had served as Susan’s attending during one of her adult-inpatient rotations. She had a solid, conservative style that got the job done but frequently clashed with Susan’s more aggressive approach to medicine. Despite that, they had gotten along well, learned to respect one another, and discharged an unusually large number of patients.

  The R-1s fell silent as Dr. Mirschaum walked to the table with her current psychiatry fellow in tow. A compact man who clearly worked out at the gym, he carried one of the older portable computers, larger than a palm-pross but smaller than the antiquated laptops. He also held a cardboard box. Kendall released Susan’s hand.

  The fellow placed the computer in the middle of the table, facing one lockered wall. He set the box beside it. Some of the R-1s toward the back adjusted the Vox on their wrists to the screen so they would not have to crowd around the portable.

  Susan had a clear view of the screen and remained in position without bothering to set her Vox. It currently displayed a grid with the residents’ names along the left side, at the moment in alphabetical order, and the year’s rotations, beginning on July 1, across the top. All around her, residents fidgeted, but their conversations dropped to whispers, then disappeared.

  The fellow faded back to allow the R-1s better access to the portable. Dr. Mirschaum stood directly beside the table and cleared her throat. “As you all know why you’re here and how this works, I don’t see any need for preamble.” She stuffed an arm into the box, swished bits of paper about with her fingers, then pulled out her hand.