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The first chapter of "A Cold and Distant Memory."

I thought it would be a routine case until the car doors locked and Agnes turned left when I had told her to go right.
I punched the buttons on the dashboard. “Agnes, what’s going on?”
“I’ve been reprogrammed, Jason,” she said.
“Reprogrammed? I thought only the driver could do that.”
“In theory that’s true,” she told me calmly. “Reality is a bit different.”
I stomped on the brake, but it refused to move. The muscles in my arm tensed as I tried to turn the steering wheel. It didn’t budge. Agnes is a good deal stronger than I am. I sat back.
“Wonder if I can sue Detroit over this?”
On second thought, that wasn’t such a good idea. The car was a Japanese model.
Agnes increased the car’s speed. Even if I could jump out, I didn’t relish the prospect of leaping from a car speeding 50 miles per hour on a major highway.
“Where are we going, Agnes?”
“I just have an address. Checking coordinates, it appears to be in the central business section of the city.”
I kept hitting buttons. “Isn’t there a manual override somewhere?”
“It’s been disabled.”
Agnes sped into the older, more dilapidated business areas. She pulled into what appeared to be an empty warehouse. It was evening. Her lights were on. I could see the outlines of three men waiting. When the car stopped, the doors unlocked, and two pairs of steel strong hands gripped me and pulled me from the driver’s seat. Skullcrushers. They seemed well-made, excellently modified for efficient service.
Two held my arms while the third landed a hard punch to my abdomen. I gasped for air and doubled up in pain.
“Listen, why don’t you ask questions first? If you don’t like my answers, then you can begin this. I’m really very reasonable,” I told them, in between coughing for air.
The two holding me loosened their grip slightly so the second punch swung me around. I didn’t know what materials they were made of nowadays, but you can tell the touch, at least with Skullcrushers. Cool and smooth to the human skin, not rough and bony like the human hand. Manufacturers never get fancy with Skullcrusher features. Black alloy. Red sensors for eyes.
“Didn’t like my idea?” I asked.
The third blow hit my right kidney and I fell to my knees. Robots, in addition to taking over a lot of productive jobs, have been discovered to be wonderful enforcers for any type of organized or semi-organized crime syndicates. Feed into their memory circuits the human anatomy and they know where and how hard to punch. They automatically calculate your weight and height so no punch does more damage than they want it to. Superb machines. All of them. But at the present time I wasn’t giving a cheer for science.
The two threw me across the warehouse floor. I banged my head against some empty wooden crates. A warm flow of blood leaked from my mouth. Two of the Skulls yanked me to a sitting position. Their cool, efficient hands unbuttoned my shirt. They placed a cold, round orb over my heart and hooked wires to my fingertips. A small headset snapped over my forehead. The third robot set up the mini-computer that would decode the information.
Agnes had left her headlights on. I shielded my eyes with my free hand. A fourth figure stepped out and blocked one headlight. He was medium build. The suit looked clean and expensive. His face was in the shadows but I caught a glimpse of red as the light played off his hair. I nodded. Sometimes Skullcrushers work with humans. They are not the brainiest of the robot family.
The human walked a few steps and stood before me. His face remained in the shadows.
“Charlotte Lansdale,” he said.
“Jason Dugan,” I said. “Good to meet you.”
He didn’t smile. He merely gestured to a Skullcrusher who backhanded me, increasing the flow of blood from my mouth.
“Let’s try again, Mr. Dugan. My name is not Charlotte Lansdale.”
“Really. Could’ve fooled me. You look kind of like a Charlotte.”
He looked as stony as his artificial friends. His voice seemed bored, almost weary. “Stop this nonsense, Mr. Dugan. I have no sense of humor. Let’s don’t drag this out.”
Even with the boredom, he gave off an aura of full-flavored professionalism. Competent. Knowledgeable. Dangerous.
He looked through my wallet, which I had evidently lost when tossed across the floor. He flipped through the credit cards and checked one or two random bits of paper.
“Are you aware what you are hooked up to?” he asked.
“A TC computer.”
He smiled. It was the smile of a greedy nephew who just heard a rich uncle had died. “Yes. Truth or consequences.” With a deftness that surprised me, he squatted down, balanced himself, and rocked slightly on his feet.
“Let’s play,” he said.
A major advance on the old polygraph machine, TC computers are not permitted in courts yet because defense attorneys are fighting them. The TCs too reliable. Jurors will not be impressed with a defendant who refuses a TC test. They will rightly believe an innocent defendant would rush to the machine.
“Charlotte Lansdale.”
“What about her?”
“You are looking for her?”
“Yes.”
He stood up quickly. I sensed he was well-muscled beneath the tailor-made suit. The quickness reminded me of a second baseman pivoting for a double play. The glare of headlights still obscured his face but I did catch a glimpse of a smile.
He sounded pleased. “Good. You know how to play the game. I don’t have to explain that if you lie, we’ll know about it.”
I shook my head, “I wouldn’t do that. I still remember my Boy Scout oath.”
A Skullcrusher gave me a short, solid punch. It spun my head around. The robots re-attached a few wires.
“I have no sense of humor, Mr. Dugan,” the red-headed interrogator repeated. “Not when I’m working.”
It’s been said that some people tend to look like their pets. There’s a grain of truth to that. I’ve also found some individuals gravitate to certain types of robots. For a man who didn’t like jokes, Skullcrushers were the perfect companions.
“Now let’s get down to basics. Why are you looking for Charlotte Lansdale?”
“I was hired to.”
“Hired? You’re no policeman. You don’t even smell of cop. Private investigator?”
“Favor for a friend.”
He still had my wallet. He scratched the side of his jaw with it. I could hear leather scraping beard stubble.
“Who hired you?”
“That’s really supposed to be confidential.”
He gave a short, quick nod to one of his mechanical friends, who made a fist and raised it over my head.
“Tekla Chiasson,” I said.
It was not the answer he expected. He looked to ward a Skullcrusher. “Bruno?”
“The truth,” came the raspy-voice reply. Manufacturers don’t bother to make Skullcrushers sound melodic. Cuts down on the profit-ratio. Also, there’s not too much consumer demand for erudite and articulate Skullcrushers.
The human looked back toward me. “Ok. Who is she and why does she care about Charlotte Lansdale?”
“Tekla works with Charlotte. They’re aides in Senator Kendrick Donaldson’s office and friends. When Charlotte dropped out of sight, Tekla was worried. She hired me to see if I could find out what happened to her friend.”
I didn’t need the machine to tell me my nerves tightened and my heart thumped faster.. I breathed shallowly and hoped there was one question he wouldn’t ask me.
My interrogator crossed his arms and leaned back on my car hood. “Why did she hire you? Why not a real investigator?”
“I could take offense at that.”
A robot raised his arm again. I lifted my free hand. “Just kidding. Tekla is a friend of mine. I’ve known her for years. She remembered a story I did about five years ago on two men on the Virginia Death Row. I found new evidence that proved they were innocent.”
“The Mathews-Slidell case. The story and its author, Jason M. Dugan were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize,” said one robot.
I blinked with astonishment, then looked toward the human. “An Einstein,” I said. “You have an Einstein among the Skullcrushers.”
His face was still in the shadows. “You need both brains and brawn,” he said. “A Pulitzer Prize ….”
I shook my head. “Nominated. I didn’t win. Of course, I always suspected some logrolling on the vote.”
The inquisitor paused. He was silent for a moment. He brought his hand up and a thumb scratched at his jaw. He spoke slowly, as if considering every word. “No, that’s not it. Your name is not unknown to me.” He shot a look toward the Einstein. “What else has he done?” the human asked.
The reply was immediate. “Jason Dugan tracked down three bombers who placed an incendiary device in a genetic screening clinic. Three were killed, five injured in the explosion. Among those killed….”
“Was my wife,” I said.
His thumb stopped scratching. He was in dim light but I think his eyebrows inched higher. A hiss came from his intake of air.
“Yes. I recall the case. You became a Liquidator?”
“No. One of them is alive. In prison.”
“And the other two?”
“Where they belong. In hell.”
He grunted. “Have you found Charlotte Lansdale?”
“No.”
“Have you found any evidence suggesting where she is?”
“No.”
“Is she alive?”
I shrugged. “I assume so.”
He paused again. He was not just a muscleman. He put some thought into his work. “At a screening clinic. Are you genetically sculptured?”
“Yes,” I told him.
He frowned. He didn’t like the news. Then he shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”
He walked toward me and planted his feet. He crossed his arms and stared at me. “I’ll be brief, Mr. Dugan. Listen to me well. You may be genrich, quick and smart, but you’re inexperienced. You went after the bombers because of your wife. You’re looking for Charlotte Lansdale because a friend asked you to. Personal involvement is the mark of an amateur and we…” His arm drew a semi-circle in the air. “… are professionals. You’re not in our league. Drop the case and go home. Understand?”
I nodded.
“From this day forward, you never heard of Charlotte Lansdale. Nor will you continue looking for her.”
I showed a friendly smile. “Sounds reasonable to me.”
He motioned to the robots. They folded up their equipment and walked to a car. Their boss gave me one final look. He threw my wallet back. It plopped on the floor near my feet.
“You were unarmed,” he said. “You’re either very confident or very foolish.”
“Right now, it looks like foolish wins out.”
He grunted and walked away. He slid into the front passenger seat of a car and barked an order to the artificial driver. Machines driving machines. It’s getting to be a strange world.
I grabbed a handkerchief and dabbed at the blood, falling in droplets on my shirt. My stomach, head and kidneys ached, but I stumbled to my car and inspected in face in the rearview mirror.
“How are you?” Agnes asked.
“Alive,” I told her.
“I’m sorry, Jason, but I couldn’t do a thing.” A trace of remorse was in the voice. Amazingly realistic. Computers can counterfeit a wide variety of human emotions in their voices. But that doesn’t mean they feel anything.
Nevertheless, I play along. Another sort of computer game. Makes you imagine you have real human companionship.
“I know. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Shall I drive you to a hospital?”
“At the rates they charge? You must be kidding. Take me home.”
I crawled into the back seat. Agnes drove out of the warehouse and onto the street, observing all traffic laws. Autocomputers do that. They are programmed to obey not only traffic regulations but the rules of road courtesy. By doing so, they have vastly reduced the number of fatalities on the nation’s highways Most fatalities are due to human drivers. There are many people, most of them men, who still want to pump the gas pedal personally, grip the steering wheel and make the beast perform as an extension of themselves. There are others, older persons mostly, who have practically forgotten how to handle a car. And younger people who have never learned.
Of course, along with the ability of computers and artificial intelligence, you still have to admire human ingenuity. Autocomputers haven dramatically reduced the number of car thefts. They don’t go unless their owner is in the driver’s seat. They have electrical defenses.
Until today I didn't know that an autocomputer could be tampered with successfully. Human ingenuity.
“Jason, we’re here.”
I shook my head, which did not diminish the pain. Then I asked Agnes about the detour.
“Do you know how it was done?”
After thirty seconds of scientific jargon, I told her to stop.
“Let’s make this simpler, for both you and me. Can you stop it from happening again?”
“Yes, I can take counter-measures.”
“Good.”
I got out and rode the elevator to my seventh story apartment. Having learned my lesson, I checked my home computer. It had not been disturbed.
“Agnes, can security here be breached?”
“No, Jason. The apartment is impenetrable.”
I frowned. “Before today I would have said that about the car.”
“That has been fixed,” Agnes said sharply.
Perhaps it was my imagination but I thought I sensed some resentment on Agnes’ part at being tampered with.
“Better step into the medical chamber, Jason. Let me check you.”
I groaned and walked into another room, unbuttoning my shirt as I went. Agnes is Triple-A medical. At times, that has therapeutic benefit. At times, it is a pain in the butt.
When I sat down, Agnes attached her probes, orbs and wires to chest, back and kidneys. She hummed, and clicked and modulated. Which is akin to a doctor muttering “ah-ha,” when you’re in his office.
“Breathe deeply,” she said.
I patiently inhaled and exhaled. “You know you have cold fingers.”
“There are some bruises and a good-sized lump on your head. No permanent damage. Would you like a pain pill?”
“No, I just want to suffer smilingly to show my intrepid character.”
Agnes gave a long hum which I took as a computer sigh of disapproval.
“Jason, it may interest you to know that although humans now communicate with dolphins and monkeys, man is the only species which uses sarcasm.”
“I’m hardly impressed. After all, monkeys kill their young.”
“Yes, but they’re not sarcastic about it.”
I took the two pills that appeared at the computer window and the glass of water that dropped into the slot.
“You’re getting more human every day, Agnes.”
“I assume you mean that as a compliment, not an insult.”
I took the pills and washed them down with the water. Triple-A medical computers can dispense all but the most potent, or illegal, drugs. Psychologists claim our electronic friends – as some call them nowadays – have reduced the rate of suicide and lessened the severity of depression in the population. The interplay between a computer and a person is therapeutic and aids mental stability, they say. I have no reason to doubt them. But there are limits. Agnes is very good at dispensing sedatives and tranquilizers. A year ago, when my wife died, I became very good at taking them.
“How about a shot of Jack Daniels?”
“I would recommend against it due to the pain pill. Your kidneys have had enough exertion today.”
“I’ll sip it slowly.”
“Very slowly?”
“OK, OK. Pour.”




News Read About My Latest Book "A Cold and Distant Memory"				The first chapter of "A Cold and Distant Memory." I thought it would be a routine case until the car doors locked and Agnes turned left when I had told her to go right. I punched the buttons on the dashboard. “Agnes, what’s going on?” “I’ve been reprogrammed, Jason,” she said. “Reprogrammed? I thought only the driver could do that.” “In theory that’s true,” she told me calmly. “Reality is a bit different.” I stomped on the brake, but it refused to move. The muscles in my arm tensed as I tried to turn the steering wheel. It didn’t budge. Agnes is a good deal stronger than I am. I sat back. “Wonder if I can sue Detroit over this?” On second thought, that wasn’t such a good idea. The car was a Japanese model. Agnes increased the car’s speed. Even if I could jump out, I didn’t relish the prospect of leaping from a car speeding 50 miles per hour on a major highway. “Where are we going, Agnes?” “I just have an address. Checking coordinates, it appears to be in the central business section of the city.” I kept hitting buttons. “Isn’t there a manual override somewhere?” “It’s been disabled.” Agnes sped into the older, more dilapidated business areas. She pulled into what appeared to be an empty warehouse. It was evening. Her lights were on. I could see the outlines of three men waiting. When the car stopped, the doors unlocked, and two pairs of steel strong hands gripped me and pulled me from the driver’s seat. Skullcrushers. They seemed well-made, excellently modified for efficient service. Two held my arms while the third landed a hard punch to my abdomen. I gasped for air and doubled up in pain. “Listen, why don’t you ask questions first? If you don’t like my answers, then you can begin this. I’m really very reasonable,” I told them, in between coughing for air. The two holding me loosened their grip slightly so the second punch swung me around. I didn’t know what materials they were made of nowadays, but you can tell the touch, at least with Skullcrushers. Cool and smooth to the human skin, not rough and bony like the human hand. Manufacturers never get fancy with Skullcrusher features. Black alloy. Red sensors for eyes. “Didn’t like my idea?” I asked. The third blow hit my right kidney and I fell to my knees. Robots, in addition to taking over a lot of productive jobs, have been discovered to be wonderful enforcers for any type of organized or semi-organized crime syndicates. Feed into their memory circuits the human anatomy and they know where and how hard to punch. They automatically calculate your weight and height so no punch does more damage than they want it to. Superb machines. All of them. But at the present time I wasn’t giving a cheer for science. The two threw me across the warehouse floor. I banged my head against some empty wooden crates. A warm flow of blood leaked from my mouth. Two of the Skulls yanked me to a sitting position. Their cool, efficient hands unbuttoned my shirt. They placed a cold, round orb over my heart and hooked wires to my fingertips. A small headset snapped over my forehead. The third robot set up the mini-computer that would decode the information. Agnes had left her headlights on. I shielded my eyes with my free hand. A fourth figure stepped out and blocked one headlight. He was medium build. The suit looked clean and expensive. His face was in the shadows but I caught a glimpse of red as the light played off his hair. I nodded. Sometimes Skullcrushers work with humans. They are not the brainiest of the robot family. The human walked a few steps and stood before me. His face remained in the shadows. “Charlotte Lansdale,” he said. “Jason Dugan,” I said. “Good to meet you.” He didn’t smile. He merely gestured to a Skullcrusher who backhanded me, increasing the flow of blood from my mouth. “Let’s try again, Mr. Dugan. My name is not Charlotte Lansdale.” “Really. Could’ve fooled me. You look kind of like a Charlotte.” He looked as stony as his artificial friends. His voice seemed bored, almost weary. “Stop this nonsense, Mr. Dugan. I have no sense of humor. Let’s don’t drag this out.” Even with the boredom, he gave off an aura of full-flavored professionalism. Competent. Knowledgeable. Dangerous. He looked through my wallet, which I had evidently lost when tossed across the floor. He flipped through the credit cards and checked one or two random bits of paper. “Are you aware what you are hooked up to?” he asked. “A TC computer.” He smiled. It was the smile of a greedy nephew who just heard a rich uncle had died. “Yes. Truth or consequences.” With a deftness that surprised me, he squatted down, balanced himself, and rocked slightly on his feet. “Let’s play,” he said. A major advance on the old polygraph machine, TC computers are not permitted in courts yet because defense attorneys are fighting them. The TCs too reliable. Jurors will not be impressed with a defendant who refuses a TC test. They will rightly believe an innocent defendant would rush to the machine. “Charlotte Lansdale.” “What about her?” “You are looking for her?” “Yes.” He stood up quickly. I sensed he was well-muscled beneath the tailor-made suit. The quickness reminded me of a second baseman pivoting for a double play. The glare of headlights still obscured his face but I did catch a glimpse of a smile. He sounded pleased. “Good. You know how to play the game. I don’t have to explain that if you lie, we’ll know about it.” I shook my head, “I wouldn’t do that. I still remember my Boy Scout oath.” A Skullcrusher gave me a short, solid punch. It spun my head around. The robots re-attached a few wires. “I have no sense of humor, Mr. Dugan,” the red-headed interrogator repeated. “Not when I’m working.” It’s been said that some people tend to look like their pets. There’s a grain of truth to that. I’ve also found some individuals gravitate to certain types of robots. For a man who didn’t like jokes, Skullcrushers were the perfect companions. “Now let’s get down to basics. Why are you looking for Charlotte Lansdale?” “I was hired to.” “Hired? You’re no policeman. You don’t even smell of cop. Private investigator?” “Favor for a friend.” He still had my wallet. He scratched the side of his jaw with it. I could hear leather scraping beard stubble. “Who hired you?” “That’s really supposed to be confidential.” He gave a short, quick nod to one of his mechanical friends, who made a fist and raised it over my head. “Tekla Chiasson,” I said. It was not the answer he expected. He looked to ward a Skullcrusher. “Bruno?” “The truth,” came the raspy-voice reply. Manufacturers don’t bother to make Skullcrushers sound melodic. Cuts down on the profit-ratio. Also, there’s not too much consumer demand for erudite and articulate Skullcrushers. The human looked back toward me. “Ok. Who is she and why does she care about Charlotte Lansdale?” “Tekla works with Charlotte. They’re aides in Senator Kendrick Donaldson’s office and friends. When Charlotte dropped out of sight, Tekla was worried. She hired me to see if I could find out what happened to her friend.” I didn’t need the machine to tell me my nerves tightened and my heart thumped faster.. I breathed shallowly and hoped there was one question he wouldn’t ask me. My interrogator crossed his arms and leaned back on my car hood. “Why did she hire you? Why not a real investigator?” “I could take offense at that.” A robot raised his arm again. I lifted my free hand. “Just kidding. Tekla is a friend of mine. I’ve known her for years. She remembered a story I did about five years ago on two men on the Virginia Death Row. I found new evidence that proved they were innocent.” “The Mathews-Slidell case. The story and its author, Jason M. Dugan were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize,” said one robot. I blinked with astonishment, then looked toward the human. “An Einstein,” I said. “You have an Einstein among the Skullcrushers.” His face was still in the shadows. “You need both brains and brawn,” he said. “A Pulitzer Prize ….” I shook my head. “Nominated. I didn’t win. Of course, I always suspected some logrolling on the vote.” The inquisitor paused. He was silent for a moment. He brought his hand up and a thumb scratched at his jaw. He spoke slowly, as if considering every word. “No, that’s not it. Your name is not unknown to me.” He shot a look toward the Einstein. “What else has he done?” the human asked. The reply was immediate. “Jason Dugan tracked down three bombers who placed an incendiary device in a genetic screening clinic. Three were killed, five injured in the explosion. Among those killed….” “Was my wife,” I said. His thumb stopped scratching. He was in dim light but I think his eyebrows inched higher. A hiss came from his intake of air. “Yes. I recall the case. You became a Liquidator?” “No. One of them is alive. In prison.” “And the other two?” “Where they belong. In hell.” He grunted. “Have you found Charlotte Lansdale?” “No.” “Have you found any evidence suggesting where she is?” “No.” “Is she alive?” I shrugged. “I assume so.” He paused again. He was not just a muscleman. He put some thought into his work. “At a screening clinic. Are you genetically sculptured?” “Yes,” I told him. He frowned. He didn’t like the news. Then he shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” He walked toward me and planted his feet. He crossed his arms and stared at me. “I’ll be brief, Mr. Dugan. Listen to me well. You may be genrich, quick and smart, but you’re inexperienced. You went after the bombers because of your wife. You’re looking for Charlotte Lansdale because a friend asked you to. Personal involvement is the mark of an amateur and we…” His arm drew a semi-circle in the air. “… are professionals. You’re not in our league. Drop the case and go home. Understand?” I nodded. “From this day forward, you never heard of Charlotte Lansdale. Nor will you continue looking for her.” I showed a friendly smile. “Sounds reasonable to me.” He motioned to the robots. They folded up their equipment and walked to a car. Their boss gave me one final look. He threw my wallet back. It plopped on the floor near my feet. “You were unarmed,” he said. “You’re either very confident or very foolish.” “Right now, it looks like foolish wins out.” He grunted and walked away. He slid into the front passenger seat of a car and barked an order to the artificial driver. Machines driving machines. It’s getting to be a strange world. I grabbed a handkerchief and dabbed at the blood, falling in droplets on my shirt. My stomach, head and kidneys ached, but I stumbled to my car and inspected in face in the rearview mirror. “How are you?” Agnes asked. “Alive,” I told her. “I’m sorry, Jason, but I couldn’t do a thing.” A trace of remorse was in the voice. Amazingly realistic. Computers can counterfeit a wide variety of human emotions in their voices. But that doesn’t mean they feel anything. Nevertheless, I play along. Another sort of computer game. Makes you imagine you have real human companionship. “I know. It wasn’t your fault.” “Shall I drive you to a hospital?” “At the rates they charge? You must be kidding. Take me home.” I crawled into the back seat. Agnes drove out of the warehouse and onto the street, observing all traffic laws. Autocomputers do that. They are programmed to obey not only traffic regulations but the rules of road courtesy. By doing so, they have vastly reduced the number of fatalities on the nation’s highways Most fatalities are due to human drivers. There are many people, most of them men, who still want to pump the gas pedal personally, grip the steering wheel and make the beast perform as an extension of themselves. There are others, older persons mostly, who have practically forgotten how to handle a car. And younger people who have never learned. Of course, along with the ability of computers and artificial intelligence, you still have to admire human ingenuity. Autocomputers haven dramatically reduced the number of car thefts. They don’t go unless their owner is in the driver’s seat. They have electrical defenses. Until today I didn't know that an autocomputer could be tampered with successfully. Human ingenuity. “Jason, we’re here.” I shook my head, which did not diminish the pain. Then I asked Agnes about the detour. “Do you know how it was done?” After thirty seconds of scientific jargon, I told her to stop. “Let’s make this simpler, for both you and me. Can you stop it from happening again?” “Yes, I can take counter-measures.” “Good.” I got out and rode the elevator to my seventh story apartment. Having learned my lesson, I checked my home computer. It had not been disturbed. “Agnes, can security here be breached?” “No, Jason. The apartment is impenetrable.” I frowned. “Before today I would have said that about the car.” “That has been fixed,” Agnes said sharply. Perhaps it was my imagination but I thought I sensed some resentment on Agnes’ part at being tampered with. “Better step into the medical chamber, Jason. Let me check you.” I groaned and walked into another room, unbuttoning my shirt as I went. Agnes is Triple-A medical. At times, that has therapeutic benefit. At times, it is a pain in the butt. When I sat down, Agnes attached her probes, orbs and wires to chest, back and kidneys. She hummed, and clicked and modulated. Which is akin to a doctor muttering “ah-ha,” when you’re in his office. “Breathe deeply,” she said. I patiently inhaled and exhaled. “You know you have cold fingers.” “There are some bruises and a good-sized lump on your head. No permanent damage. Would you like a pain pill?” “No, I just want to suffer smilingly to show my intrepid character.” Agnes gave a long hum which I took as a computer sigh of disapproval. “Jason, it may interest you to know that although humans now communicate with dolphins and monkeys, man is the only species which uses sarcasm.” “I’m hardly impressed. After all, monkeys kill their young.” “Yes, but they’re not sarcastic about it.” I took the two pills that appeared at the computer window and the glass of water that dropped into the slot. “You’re getting more human every day, Agnes.” “I assume you mean that as a compliment, not an insult.” I took the pills and washed them down with the water. Triple-A medical computers can dispense all but the most potent, or illegal, drugs. Psychologists claim our electronic friends – as some call them nowadays – have reduced the rate of suicide and lessened the severity of depression in the population. The interplay between a computer and a person is therapeutic and aids mental stability, they say. I have no reason to doubt them. But there are limits. Agnes is very good at dispensing sedatives and tranquilizers. A year ago, when my wife died, I became very good at taking them. “How about a shot of Jack Daniels?” “I would recommend against it due to the pain pill. Your kidneys have had enough exertion today.” “I’ll sip it slowly.” “Very slowly?” “OK, OK. Pour.”