Nerves of Steel

Garry Kilworth

‘You want what?’ asked the doctor’s image, looking confused.

‘I want a new right arm,’ I said. ‘One of flesh, blood, muscle and bone.’ I dangled my useless metal limb in front of his image in the commbooth.

My arm had been crushed in a jig by a dumb robot at the factory the day before. Not purposely, because obviously dumb robots simply follow a set pattern of actions and have no self-control. I experienced damage signals in my head, but of course I felt no pain.

‘Surely,’ replied the doctor, who was a young human, ‘you should be applying to Citizen Robot Replacement Spares? I’, his image smiled condescendingly and waved a hand, ‘am a doctor - for real people. You shouldn’t have called this number.’

They always had to add that word ‘real’ for some reason, as if there were another kind.

I could see a Citizen robotic nurse standing close to the doctor. It shifted its feet. It was looking at me blankly, but I knew it was as puzzled as the doctor by my request. I reached out and dimmed their images a little while I gathered my thoughts to reply.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘you can see that I’m a Citizen robot.’

The young doctor smiled. ‘We wouldn’t be talking if you were a dumb robot, now would we?’

‘Then what’s the problem? CRs have got full civil rights.’

‘With one exception as I recall. You’re not permitted to vote. You still don’t have that,’ he said, clinging like most humans to the one consolation left to their race.

‘I’m not asking you to give me the vote,’ I said. ‘All I want is a new arm - a human arm. I have the same rights as you or anyone else in this matter.’

‘Well, I didn’t actually agree with giving you peo— giving CRs civil rights,’ said the doctor candidly. ‘I voted against it in the World Referendum.’

‘Whether you voted for us, or against us, it makes no difference to the law now. We won. There were people out there whose consciences told them we had been treated as non-citizens for long enough.’

‘See here,’ snapped the doctor, ‘I don’t want a political speech from you. I’m getting a little tired of arguing. I have patients to see.’

‘I’m a patient,’ I said, ‘and you’ll see me. I have a right to medical treatment. The law states that. I have a right to all the things enjoyed by a normal human citizen.’

The doctor’s image began to display the symptoms of anger at this point and the CR nurse reached for the control panel. I could see it was about to cut the connection.

I said to the nurse, ‘Don’t do it. I’m entitled to be calling and your boss knows it. I’ve got your number. Don’t do anything you might be arrested for later. I intend to stay connected until I get my rights.’

‘You keep talking about your rights,’ said the doctor, exasperated now. ‘Who sent you here? Are you a part of some CR action group? What is it? You want the vote now?’

‘I want a human arm,’ I said. ‘Plain and simple.’

It was the nurse who spoke to me now, in a low, puzzled but controlled tone. ‘Why would you want a human arm?’

‘Yes, why?’ asked the doctor.

‘I see no reason why not,’ I countered. ‘We’ve got humans with electromechanical body parts - cyborgs, cybermen, whatever you like to call them. No one would think twice about giving me a new plastimetal fully functional arm if I were a human with a crushed limb, now would they? All I would have to do would be to ask.’

‘If you were a human,’ said the doctor, ‘you would ask for a human arm.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ I said.

The teledoc sighed. ‘Well, obviously some humans choose to have robotic limbs when they lose their own

He made it sound as if these humans were freaks, eccentrics, but it was common knowledge that a robotic arm was stronger, had more functions than a human arm and was generally more trustworthy in an emergency. I had also been told by human acquaintances that there was a squeamishness amongst them about having another person’s flesh-and-blood arm attached to their bodies: the limb of some sweaty, unclean person they might not have wished to shake hands with in the whole. More importantly there was the fear that spare human limbs might be carrying some kind of latent virus.

I said evenly, ‘Listen, doctor, you know as well as I do that some humans even go in for cosmetic surgery - they have perfectly good flesh-and-blood limbs removed and replaced by robotic ones, which they consider superior.’

I didn’t add that these cyberfreaks sometimes came to live amongst us CRs, copying our lifestyle and culture, trying to become like us.

The doctor suddenly muttered, ‘I can’t waste any more time on this. Look, I’m contacting a surgeon at the hospital. You call the General Hospital, give your ID, and they’ll put you through - next Thursday at ten o’clock, you understand? You’ll have to work it out with them. I’m telling you, number—’

‘XL397 - I have letters too in my registration identity.’

The doctor gritted his teeth. ‘XL397, you’re not going to get anywhere with this idiotic game. The consultant surgeon will kick out your lights-figuratively speaking of course.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ I said, reaching for the switch. ‘Good day to you, doctor.’

As the images faded, the nurse called, ‘What are you trying to do?’

‘Control my own destiny,’ I said to the now blank space in front of me.

There was no need to go back to the factory during the following week, because I was useless without my right arm. I took the week off and wandered through the city, enjoying a few of the sights. I went to the art gallery, the museum and various other similar places. I wasn’t the only CR visiting these establishments. It had become fashionable amongst us to be seen to be interested in human culture. Humans seemed to like the idea too that we were taking advantage of our new status in society. It was a harmless enough occupation. They watched us curiously as we approached paintings to stare at them and appear to study the techniques of the human artists. I expect they wondered what was going through our thinking circuits. I believe they got a kind of kick out of seeing us there for the first time, in the way that they might an intelligent panda or a teddy bear brought to life. Ahh, look at that, isn’t that sweet? It’s come to see the paintings.

Actually, there were only two paintings that interested me. The first was Masaccio’s The Expulsion from Paradise, showing a distraught Adam and Eve walking away from Eden. The second was Mantegna’s St Sebastian, depicting the martyr shot full of arrows and dying in agony. To me, they represented two (possibly separate) forms of suffering: one spiritual the other physical. I moved from one to the other of these two works of art, studying the faces intently, understanding one but not the other. I asked myself: were they the same?

I went to the national park too, to find a bit of peace and quiet. I enjoy nature as much as any human. For a start, a robot like me doesn’t have to fear snake bites or savage predators. I can walk right up to a timid wild deer sometimes. I once witnessed a wildcat killing a squirrel. I was close enough to see into their eyes. It was a strangely troubling experience, being so close to such basic savagery. To the wild animals we’re like vehicles. We don’t smell of human sweat or other body odours.

A man watched me studying the ducks on the lake and said, ‘You won’t find no robot birds here. What do you CRs want to come for?’

It was all right for us to go to the art gallery and museum, but the park was for living creatures.

‘I like it here,’ I said.

‘You should stick to your own kind,’ said the man. ‘You’ll be happier that way.’

To his way of thinking he wasn’t being nasty. He was just offering me sound advice. Men and birds were flesh and blood together, so they had more in common than robots and birds.

However, what people like him conveniently forgot was that our minds are consistent with that of a human. Basically, they took the processes of a human brain and transferred them to a robot’s circuits. They had simply swapped an organic container for an inorganic one. With the swap came unexpected additions, among them a range of emotions.

This was one of the reasons for our elevation in status, since certain politicians argued that if CR minds worked in the same way as human minds, we were in effect inorganic humans and entitled to the same privileges. There was a fierce political row in Euro-Parliament over the issue, some of the antirobot lobby arguing that there was a doubt about the ability of CRs to make moral judgements, since no one could tell whether or not we had a conscience. That one was quashed when a well-known Scandinavian member asked for proof of the existence of a conscience or soul (‘Either will do,’ he stated, drily) amongst the human members of the antirobot lobby.

On Thursday I dropped into a commbooth and called the consultant surgeon, stating my ID, only to find I was automatically transferred to a conference network. There were five images in the booth with me. No one introduced themselves. Under the main image was a backlit sign stating that the female behind the desk was the consultant surgeon. The others all had name or number signs, with their job titles written beneath. Two of them were Citizen robots, the other two were a man and a woman.

The consultant surgeon was used to giving orders, you could see that. The two CRs and the other woman were not much more than basic images to me and remained so throughout the interview, but not the human whose sign read: Arthur Spateman - Hospital Management.

‘Now, what’s this all about?’ asked the surgeon, glaring at me.

‘It’s about me wanting a human arm,’ I said.

‘And where would we find one of those for you?’ asked a Citizen robot.

This group was obviously primed to send me on my way. I could sense just by looking at their images that they were going to be intransigent. The humans amongst them would hide behind arrogant statements, behind superior smiles. They would attempt to use their authority, coolly, to dismiss my request. I was feeling angry. A normal consultation would involve only the surgeon and the patient, yet they had chosen to face me en masse in order to try to intimidate me. I decided that it would serve me to attack first. I wanted the surgeon to know she wasn’t dealing with a servile CR, but one who was prepared to assert itself.

I shrugged. ‘There are plenty of spare limbs around in hospitals which specialize in cosmetic surgery. Then again, I don’t mind having one from a corpse, so long as it’s freshly dead.’ I chose to attack Arthur, since he looked the most vulnerable. ‘I’d even have one of Mr Spateman’s arms, if it was cleaned up properly first.’

The bulky figure of Arthur Spateman straightened. The supercilious smile left his face and was replaced by a stiff expression.

He spluttered, ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Now, Arthur—’ began the surgeon.

But Spateman, smouldering, ignored her. ‘No, come on, what the hell did you mean by that remark?’

‘Simple enough statement,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t want any part of your body attached to mine unless it had first been dipped in disinfectant. You look like a man with some - shall we say – habits?’

The consultant surgeon raised her eyes to the ceiling.

Spateman waved a stylus at me, jabbing at the air as he spoke.

‘You… listen, we know what you’re up to, you tin fucking freak. I’ve got your number, XL whatever. You want a human arm first, then another arm, then a leg, and finally all over, till you’re human. You think we don’t know this? You want to become human. Then you think you’ll get the fucking vote! Well, you’ve got another think coming. Goddamn - that’s somebody’s arm you want. Somebody. Not a fucking jumble of fucking wires, but somebody real. You understand me? Over my fucking dead body.’

I stared at the rest of the committee each in turn.

‘Let me make one thing quite clear,’ I said. ‘ I do not want this man’s arm under any circumstances, freshly dead or not.’

I thought Spateman was going to have apoplexy. His image stood up and pushed the chair back. I heard it scraping across the floor.

‘You fucking heap of—’

‘Sit down, Arthur,’ said the surgeon. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself.’

Spateman seemed to gather himself together. He blinked at the consultant and then, red-faced, sat in his chair again.

‘Now,’ said the surgeon calmly. ‘XL396—’

‘397,’ I corrected her. ‘Don’t worry, I have the same problem with the peculiar names you people give each other.’ I stared at Arthur Spateman’s sign as I spoke.

Spateman’s eyes widened a little but he kept his mouth shut this time.

‘XL397,’ continued the surgeon. ‘Look, I understand you’re playing some kind of game with us here, and I can appreciate that it might seem amusing to you - you do have a sense of humour?’

‘You know I do. I experience a similar array of emotions as you.’

‘Yes, well, I’m a surgeon, not a robot technician. I know very little about robots. What’s bothering us all is this. You’re not the only CR to demand a human limb. There have been others, in other cities. There seems to be some kind of conspiracy going on and we’re all very worried about it. Now, you can understand our concern, can’t you?’

I was surprised about the others, but then the laws of coincidence are full of such strange confluences. Two or three scientists independently discover the same thing within weeks of each other, though others have been seeking the same discovery for centuries. It happens. Obviously several CRs had come to the same conclusion as me, once they had begun to think about their new status in society.

‘I can appreciate it, but not empathize.’

‘But’, said the woman sitting next to Spateman, ‘it’s a matter of control you see. We seem to be losing control of things, since that new law was passed. It’s all very worrying.’

‘You’re losing control, we’re gaining some,’ I said. ‘I want to be able to do the things you do. I want to feel things, know what it’s like to touch things. Us CRs have three senses - sight, hearing and smell. We can’t touch or taste. I want, eventually, to do both of those.’

I didn’t tell them what I actually wanted to feel was the sensation of pain. The idea of pain had begun to fascinate me, obsess me, recently. It was something, just a word at the moment, but it seemed to occupy humans continually. Pain. What was it? What did it do to you? How was it formed? How did it transmit itself to you? I wanted to possess it. I had to know pain in order to understand humans, to learn to trust them fully. It was part of their history, part of their being. Progress, for Citizen robots, was not possible without this knowledge of pain.

I caught Spateman watching me with some interest, and inevitably with a bigot like him an irrational statement followed.

‘I fucking get it,’ he said in a satisfied tone. ‘Sex. This is all about sex. That freak wants to screw our women. Damn it - he’s after our wives and daughters.’

The consultant cried, ‘Arthur, will you please shut up! You’re not helping matters here.’

‘Perhaps’, said Spateman, gathering his things together and trying to look dignified, ‘it’s time I left, then?’

Spateman’s image faded from the screen.

The consultant surgeon heaved a sigh of relief then turned to me and said, ‘I think I understand what you’re after. I hadn’t thought about that. You’re in for a disappointment with some things though. The taste of freshly made coffee never lives up to its aroma. However, I now have an insight to the reason for your request and I think the interview can proceed.’

There followed a hundred questions from both sides of the table, from all the committee members, and I think I acquitted myself quite well. We were in conference for forty-eight minutes, during which time the humans drank several cups of coffee, and left me wondering about the consultant’s illustration. Finally it was she who brought the meeting to an end.

‘I promise you, XL397, that we’ll consider your request very carefully. Please be under no misapprehensions though - we do not have to supply you with a human arm under the law. That will be entirely up to us, the hospital administration, to decide. The law merely states that we have to supply patients with a “functional arm”. It doesn’t qualify that statement and if we decide you need a robotic limb, then there’s not a great deal you can do about it. I personally have some sympathy with your request and will consider it very seriously over the next few days.’

Later that evening, I was walking through the main square and looked up to see Arthur Spateman’s image in a news niche up on the main building. He was jabbering away, waving a finger at the crowd that had gathered beneath. I stopped to listen.

‘There’s a plot,’ he was saying wildly to the newscaster sitting next to him. ‘The CRs are trying to become real people like you and me.’

‘Surely’, said the newscaster calmly, ‘these allegations are, shall we say, a little exaggerated …?’

While I stood and stared at the broadcast a youth turned and looked at the number printed on my shoulder.

‘Hey, this is the junk,’ he cried. ‘This is the bastard that wants to become a human being. Who the Jesus do you think you are, eh? You wanna be like me, do ya?’

A crowd of youths was gathering about me.

‘Not like you,’ I said. ‘I want to be human.’

The youth’s brow furrowed and he said, ‘Hey—’

But I moved away from him, so as not to cause any more trouble.

After the news was finished and some mindless quiz programme leapt into the niche, I walked away, across the park towards my dormitory on the far side. Halfway through the park I heard some footsteps running from behind me, and I turned to see the youth I had insulted accompanied by four others. They all held what looked like steel posts stolen from the park fence.

Now if there is one emotion CRs have evolved it is fear of death. A playwright once said: ‘… both are dead when they cease to be, but while a human dies a robot stops dead, which is not the same as dying.’ What he failed to recognize and note was that both of us have a great reluctance to enter the realms of non-existence. We both experience something similar on having to leave this world for ever. There was a kind of urgency in my circuits - they told me to run.

I ran. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me.

In my efforts to get away I struck a tree root with my foot and fell headlong on to the grass. They were upon me in seconds, swinging their steel bars. I tried to roll over on to my damaged side, to present my useless arm to their blows. They were yelling at me in high distorted voices, shouting ‘junkbrain …scrapyard trash … fuckin’ wireface’ and beating me with their weapons.

Once the bars began raining down on me, I collected severe impacts on my back and shoulders and lower legs. One of my ankle joints burst open. A heavy blow struck my left eye, shattering the ceramic swivel, and my vision failed on that side of my face. All five of them wanted to smash my body to pieces, and this probably saved me from a lot of damage because they kept striking each other’s bars and getting entangled. It was during this frenetic jumble of blows that one of them finally tried to remove my head from my torso, swinging from way back behind himself, yelling, ‘Wanna be a human, huh? Try it without a fuckin’ head,’ and missed me completely, hitting one of the others instead.

The injured youth dropped to the ground, clutching his shoulder and screaming. I could see he had some sort of compound fracture, because the bone was sticking through his clothing. At that moment there was a sound from overhead and a police hovercar descended from above the trees, broadcasting an order that everyone should stand still, with their hands high.

Four of my attackers immediately scattered into the darkness of the trees, leaving their injured companion to face the cops. I lay where I was, feeling drained of energy. The youth’s face was a metre from my own and with my good eye I studied the agony evident in his contorted features, in his staring eyes, in his twisting body.

I crawled even closer to him, dragging my damaged leg behind me.

‘Listen, boy,’ I whispered in his ear as the cops approached us. ‘What does it feel like? Tell me what you feel - tell me about the pain. I want to know. I need to know—’

‘You bastard,’ he shrieked at me, sobbing. ‘You ain’t even human! Oh God, it hurts. It’s killing me.’

I said, ‘Just precisely how is it killing you?’

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