Fantastic Stories Presents: Science Fiction Super Pack #2. Randall Garrett

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      Ticking

      By Allen M. Steele

      Harold and Cindy were trying to find something to eat in the hotel kitchen when they were attacked by the cook.

      Shortly after the refugees moved into the Wyatt-Centrum Airport, they’d divvied up the jobs necessary for their continued survival. Harold and the remaining desk clerk, Merle, had drawn the assignment of locating the hotel robots. That’s all they had to do; just find them, then tell Karl and Sharon, the two Minneapolis cops who’d taken shelter at the Wyatt-Centrum when their cruiser died on the street outside. The officers had their service automatics and a pump-action .12-gauge shotgun they’d taken from their car; unlike most of their equipment, the guns weren’t rendered inoperative. And they’d already discovered that an ordinary service robot could be taken out by a well-aimed gunshot; it was the big, heavy-duty ones that were hard to kill.

      So Harold and Merle spent the second day after the blackout prowling the hotel’s ten floors. Merle knew where the robots normally operated, so they only needed to confirm their positions while avoiding being spotted, and once they’d located all the ‘bots Merle remembered, they returned to the pool and told the cops. Karl and Sharon made sure the barricades were secure, at least for the time being, then went up into the hotel and, moving from floor to floor, blew away all the ‘bots the civilians had found.

      This search-and-destroy mission netted ten housekeepers, five custodians, two room-service waiters, and two security guards. According to Merle, that accounted for the hotel robots; this didn’t include the huge bellhop that killed two staff members and a guest before someone picked up a chair and used it to smash the robot’s CPU. That happened on the first day; most of the guests fled after that, along with most of the remaining staff. After that sweep, everyone thought all the ‘bots had been accounted for and destroyed.

      By the end of the third day, the thirty-one people hiding in the Wyatt-Centrum’s cathedral-like atrium were down to the last few cans of the junk food a couple of them had scavenged from a convenience store a few blocks down the street. Nobody wanted to venture outside, though – it had become too dangerous to leave the hotel — and the cops were reluctant to tear down the plywood boards they’d had nailed across the ground-level doors and windows. So when Cindy asked Harold if he’d mind coming along while she checked out the kitchen — “It can’t all be fresh food,” she’d said. “They must have some canned stuff, too.” – she didn’t have to twist his arm very hard.

       Hunger wasn’t the only reason why he went with her, though. Truth was, he wanted to get into Cindy’s pants. Sure, she was at least twenty years younger and he was married besides, but Harold been eyeing her for the past three days. Only that morning, he hadn’t entirely turned his back when she’d taken a bath in the atrium swimming pool, As afraid as he was of dying, he was even more afraid of dying without having sex one last time. Such are the thought processes of the condemned. Perhaps he wouldn’t get a chance to knock boots with her during this foray, but at least he’d be able to show off my machismo by escorting her through the lightness kitchen. That was the general idea, anyway ... but before he got a chance to nail Cindy, that goddamn ‘bot nearly nailed them instead.

      Unfortunately, when Harold visited the kitchen earlier, he and Merle had neglected to check the big walk-in refrigerator. It wasn’t entirely his fault; the two cooks they’d found attacked them the moment they pushed open the door, forcing a hasty retreat. Those were the first robots the cops had neutralized, and Merle believed they were the only ones in the kitchen. But he was wrong; a third ‘bot had been trapped in the fridge when the lights went out.

      The walk-in was located in the rear of the kitchen, just a little farther than Harold had gone the first time he’d searched the room. They’d found a carton of breakfast cereal, which would be good for the kids, and Cindy was hoping for to find some milk that hadn’t spoiled yet. She’d just unlatched the chrome door handle, and he was standing just behind her, when they heard the sound everyone had come to dread the last few days:

       Tick-tick… tick-tick-tick… tick … tick-tick-tick…

      “Watch out!” Harold yelled, and an instant later something huge slammed through the door. Cindy was knocked to the floor; falling down was probably the only thing that saved her from having an eight-inch ice pick shoved into her chest.

      The cook was nearly as large as the bellhop. A Lang LHC-14 may seem harmless when it’s stirring a vat of corned beef hash, but this one was hurtling toward them with a sharp metal spike clutched in its manipulator claw. And neither Harold or Cindy were armed.

      “Get back, get back, get back!” Harold yelled, as if she really needed any encouragement. Cindy scuttled backward on hands, hips, and heels while he threw himself away from the refrigerator, losing his flashlight in his haste.

      Even if he’d hadn’t dropped the light, though, he would have been able to see the cook. Red and green LEDs blinked across the front of its box-like body, the glow reflecting off the hooded stereoscopic lenses within its upper turret. As it trundled through the door on soft tandem tires, the turret swept back and forth, clicking softly as the lenses captured first Cindy, then Harold, then Cindy again. Mapping them, remembering their positions...

      “Watch out! It’s gonna charge...!”

      The turret snapped toward Harold as the ‘bot determined which human was closer. At that moment, his groping hands found the cold metal surface of something that moved: a dessert cart, complete with the molding remains of several cakes. Torture wagons, his wife called these things, and he was only too happy to one in a less metaphorical way. As the cook rushed him, he dropped the light, dodged behind the cart, grabbed its glass handle, and slammed it straight into the robot.

      The impact dislodged the ice pick from the cook’s claw. As it hit the tile floor, he wrenched the cart backward, then shoved it forward again, harder this time. Harold was trying to knock it over, but the ‘bot had been designed for stability, bottom-heavy and with a low center of gravity. He was slowing it down, but he wasn’t stopping it.

      The situation was both dangerous and absurd. The cook would trundle forward, its arms swinging back and forth, and Harold would ram the cart into it. The ‘bot would halt for a second, but as soon as he pulled the cart back, the machine would charge again, its claws missing СКАЧАТЬ