The Automatic Detective Read Free

universe. I'm as sentimental as the next bot.
    She handed me a drawing. It was crude, but not bad for an eight-year-old, especially since she only drew using her telekinesis. I recognized the chunky, red mechanical anthropoid as me, and next to me was a little smiling girl with a round face and purple eyes, stick figure limbs, and a red triangle for a dress.
    "Thanks, kid."
    "You won't throw it away, will you?" she asked.
    "Are you kidding? This goes right on my refrigerator." It'd be nice to finally have a use for the old rusted machine. Right now, all it did was occupy space in my unused kitchen cubicle.
    The apartment door slid open. Gavin stepped into the hall. He still looked like hell, but he always did. Guy had gone straight past two-time loser to sixth or seventh by my estimation.
    "April Anne, get your ass back inside!"
    April wrapped her arms around me. "You better get to work, Mack." Her eyes flashed purple. "Your boss is going to yell at you, but don't worry. Just ignore him, and it'll be fine."
    She ran back into the apartment without looking back. Gavin threw me a hard glare before following her inside.
    I folded the drawing very delicately with overgrown metal fingers and tucked it in my pocket. It didn't even occur to meto scan the back. If I had, maybe what happened wouldn't have happened. But I didn't, and it did.
    That's the problem with having a hard memory matrix. Short of a system crash, you can't forget the mistakes you make.

2

    Automobiles were considered outmoded pieces of junk in Tomorrow's Town. Too loud. Too inefficient. Too dirty. More importantly, too old-fashioned and too reliable. Empire's streets were clogged with the next generation of vehicular transportation. It wasn't only the big companies either. Any grease monkey willing to steal a design out of a Flash Gordon serial and submit it to the Big Brains could get a grant. The idea was that with all those different models running around, the cream was bound to float to the top.
    There were amblers, boxes that lurched along on pneumatic legs. Treaders that, imaginatively enough, rumbled their way on tank treads with all the speed and maneuverability of turtles. Hoverskids: able to accelerate like a rocket, turn on a dime, and come to a stop after a thirty-foot drift, hence the addition of thick rubber bumpers to the design. Gyropeds zipped gracefully in and out of traffic, except when the gyros jammed and then they were out-of-control typhoons of wrecking fury. There were the buzzbugs, so named for their humming plastic wings and bumblebee-inspired chassis. And the rotorcars,which usually stuck to the skyways. About the only thing all these vehicles had in common was their lack of wheels. Nothing in Empire rolled. Except for the unipods, balanced perfectly on one wheel. Smooth ride until you got a flat.
    The Bluestar Cab Company used each and every one of these vehicles as part of its fleet. Treaders worked best for a bot of my size, but I usually got stuck with a hoverskid. My weight often taxed the engine, usually resulting in a scraping of metal roadway every seventy-five feet or so, sending sparks flying. The cost of repainting the undercarriage came out of my paycheck. If I'd been paranoid, I might've assumed the dispatcher didn't like me. Especially since every shirt he owned had a patch for the Biological Rights League stitched on the pocket.
    Driving a cab was a decent job, and I was lucky to have it. When my boss yelled at me, I grinned (metaphorically) and accepted it. He wasn't happy about the hole in my suit, but since I was late for a pickup, he had me borrow a vest from Jung.
    Jung was a gorilla, an exhibit in the Empire zoo who had gotten smart enough to be granted citizenship. He was also a stand-up guy, or ape, or whatever.
    He handed me the vest. "Be careful with this one."
    "Thanks."
    I changed, tossing the ruined vest onto the bench by my locker. Jung, holding a book in one hand and half a grapefruit in another, picked up