Robot Adept by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

you.”
    “Lies!”
    Yet more serfs were entering the audience chamber.
    Were they players waiting for their turn? “Yes, lies.” He sat down beside her, as the script dictated, but wasn’t sure he did it convincingly. “Do you expect me to believe that you are the most beautiful woman in the world?”
    Now she was evidently feeling the relevance! “That is ridiculous, and rather personal.”
    “Of course it’s ridiculous ...” His developing paranoia about the audience was, too! He wished they could just quit the play here, and get away; he didn’t trust this at all. But as they exchanged their lines, his apprehension increased. Suppose the Contrary Citizens had managed to divert Blue’s minions, so that there was no protection for the moment?
    “And I’m a feminine prig,” she was saying.  
    “No, no: I can’t face that: I must have one illusion left: the illusion about you. I love you.”
    She rose, as the cue dictated, and turned. Then she spied the audience. She almost lost her place. “I am sorry. I—“ Now she did lose it, and barely recovered.   “What can I say?”
    What, indeed? Now it seemed sure: the Citizens were about to make their move. But how could he get away from here with Agape, without setting off the trap?   They needed a natural exit, to get offstage, out of sight.
    “... I can’t tell you—“ he was saying.
    “Oh, stop telling me how you feel: I can’t bear it.”
    And he saw that the scene was coming to a close.   Here was their chance! “Ah, it’s come at last: my moment of courage.” He seized her hands, according to the script, and she looked at him in simulated terror, also scripted. But their emotions were becoming real, for a different reason. “Our moment of courage!” He drew her in to him and kissed her. “Now you’ve done it, Agape. It’s all over: we’re in love with one another.” Oops—he had used her real name, not her play name! But he couldn’t change it now. It was time for his exit.
    “Goodbye. Forgive me,” he said, and kissed her hands, and retreated.
    But now the men of the audience were advancing on the stage. Bane ran back, grabbed her arm, and hauled her along with him offstage.
    “It is happening!” she exclaimed as they ran for a rear exit.
    “I think so. We must get back to the main complex, where Citizen Blue is watching.” For this particular chamber was outside the region of the Experimental Project of humans, robots, androids, cyborgs and aliens living in harmony. Most facilities were set within it, but when particular ones were crowded, the Game Computer assigned players to the nearest outside ones. Thus it seemed that Bane and Agape had inadvertently strayed beyond the scope of Citizen Blue’s protection, and the Contrary Citizens had seized the moment.   There were serfs in the hall outside. They spotted Bane and Agape and moved purposefully toward them.   They retreated back into the play complex. But they could hear the serfs in pursuit here too, coming through the stage region.
    “The service apertures,” Agape said.
    “Go there!” Bane obeyed. Maybe there would be an escape route there.
    There was not. The service door led only into a chamber in which an assortment of maintenance machines were parked.
    “We be lost!” Bane exclaimed.
    “Maybe not!” She hurried to a communications panel, activated it, and tapped against it with a measured cadence.
    “Approach the cyborg brusher,” the speaker said.
    The lid lifted on the top of a huge cleaning machine.   “Come, Bane!” she said, running toward the device.
    “What—?”
    “The self-willed machines are helping us! Trust them!”
    Bemused, he followed her. “Remove the brain unit,” the speaker said.
    There was a pounding on the door. Evidently it had locked behind them, barring access by the serfs. That could not last long, for all doors had manual overrides.   Bane saw that there was a complicated apparatus just below the lid, with wiring and