Foreword

My apologies to William Burroughs for the title. And to Philip K. Dick and Ken MacLeod for some stolen ideas.

Lunch with Clothes On

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're in some public place like a restaurant without any clothes on? As I walked through the door of the bistro I recalled the dream I'd had last night. I passed through the explosives and metal detector and took a table where I had a view of the street as a robot waiter wobbled up to take my order.

"Hello sir or madam. May I help you?"

"I think I'll start with a cup of coffee." I needed a lift and some time to collect my thoughts. I put an ephedrine tablet on the table in anticipation of the coffee to further the boost.

The waiter headed for the kitchen and I looked at the table, oak boards stained with coffee and grease. A car appeared in the sky, coming from the east, and then it settled down across the street, kicking up dust and loose paper. I caught a glimpse of its occupant who then hurried down the street. I hoped it wasn't, but somehow knew, that it was the one who had been tailing me earlier.

The waiter rumbled over with my cup of coffee and put it down on the table. It was two thirds full, the rest having sloshed out. It stood patiently as I swallowed my tablet. I took a napkin from the table dispenser and made a show of wiping the coffee ring on the table.

"I'll have a turkey sandwich and a glass of water."

"Very good sir or madam," said the waiter and it turned and toddled toward the kitchen.

The fly that had been buzzing at the window flew over to me and landed on my sleeve. It aimed a directional acoustic transducer at my ear and said "You can have a larger penis is just five days with ..."

I flicked at the pest and it buzzed off. I loosened the weapon in my holster. The fly landed on my left sleeve and as it started to aim its transducer I blasted it with the laser set to "insect" level. The fly disintegrated with a small pop and a smoking pit appeared in the back of the chair at the next table. "Nice shot, gun," I said to the gun.

"My pleasure, nice draw," said the gun, as I slid it back into its holster. I noticed that I had a hole in my sleeve where the fly had landed. Just then a brunette in a cat-woman outfit slid into my view and seated herself opposite me. She was the one I had seen across the street a few minutes ago.

"You know, you shouldn't be so impetuous with that blaster," she purred. "You could've taken out part of your arm."

I said, "I have the gun programmed not to fire unless it's sure of the shot, but thanks for your concern." I could see now from her eyes that she was an android.

"I'm an Earth agent for the Asteroid Alliance," she said. "I've come to warn you about a death threat from the AEP." The AA is a federation of asteroid miners and the AEP is the Association of Experimental Physicists. A few years ago I'd had a role in getting a high energy collider shut down pending a comprehensive safety review. The outcome of the review had vindicated my group's concern that the collider could have produced strangelets that had the potential to consume the earth, turning it into a white-hot strange mass. The scientists were quite pissed, to say the least, and the news of death threats didn't surprise me. "We're going to get you off the planet," she continued. "We have a shuttle ready and we have to get you to it without being seen."

The waiter came back with a glass and a bottle of water. "What kind of bread do you want for your sandwich, white, whole wheat, or sesame seed bun?"

"Whole wheat."

"Do you want cheese on your sandwich, and, if yes, what kind Provolone, Swiss, American, Cheddar, and, if Cheddar, mild, medium, sharp, or extra sharp, or Monterey Jack?"

"No cheese, thank you."

"Do you want coleslaw, potato salad, or macaroni salad?"

"Potato salad."

"Very good, sir or madam," said the waiter and it rumbled off.

"Do you want something to eat?" I asked the android. I was just testing her.

"No thank you." I knew she'd say that.

"AA agent," I said, "do you have a name?"

"Call me Angela," she said. "Now listen carefully. After you eat your sandwich, we're going to leave by the back door, through the kitchen. I'll signal my car to meet us at Lafayette Park, about two blocks north of here."

Angela was watching the reflection of the window in my dark glasses. I opened the bottle of water and poured some in my glass. I was looking at her body, an incredibly good facsimile of a nubile female form. The waiter returned with my sandwich and knocked over my glass of water spilling some of it in my lap. The waiter didn't know how to react and moved forward and backward several times very quickly.

I stood up and said "Bad robot! No tip for you!"

The waiter said "I want a tip! Please let me have a tip!"

They can program these robots to have desires, but they can't give them the reasoning ability they need to figure out how to get what they want, I thought.

Angela stood up and came to my side and said "It looks like we need to get you out of those wet clothes."

I looked into her eyes again, at close range, and could see it was android eye contact lenses she was wearing. So I said "OK, let's go to your place and get naked."

"Now you're talking," she said as we headed through the kitchen.

The robot waiter came after us, waving the bill, as we headed up the alley behind the restaurant. I set the gun to the "robot" power level.


Copyright 2004, all rights reserved.
Continued in chapter two.

Thanks to Andrea for proof reading the story and helping me to fix some errors.

That good a robot would be able to assess male or female and vocalise the gender.
I suppose car (from carriage) would be the correct term but I would have maybe aircar or something different (new).
Robot sloshing the coffee? Yes, imperfections, wear and tear. Depends where you're going with this.
This fly idea is brilliant. A God-like imagination!
"Nice shot, gun," I said to the gun. Needs exclamation mark (better signify sarcasm).
strangelets - Strangelets.
white-hot strange mass - meaningless to we third parties.
what kind Provolone - what kind, Provolone.
Isn't cole slaw coleslaw?
Would a robot waiter trundle? Be something if it could pirouette!

I like this - a lot. It is rather Clifford Pickover-esq (especially The Lobotomy Club) but no matter, it is still good. I hope that you intend to turn from short to long. Would you like a co-author? Can't recall a scifi novel with two (or+) authors. Oh well, worth a try! I need the money you see!

Hey, Hey Hey, thanks for the careful reading. I changed coleslaw and the robot now rumbles, not trundles. Robots that can't distinguish gender and flying cars are staples in the American Philip K. Dick's stories. A guy gets into his car, travels 700 miles in a few minutes, that sort of thing.

A strangelet is a theoretical nucleus with strange quarks that has no coulomb barrier to fusion with normal matter. There is a strangelet link on my Web page.

Thanks for the compliments. Sci-fi novels with two authors are not that rare, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, for example. Sure, we could co-author something. Why don't you start a chapter and email it to me?

Would like to.

So how's that chapter coming? Are you going to pick up where the un-naked lunch left off or are you going to start fresh?

I started chapter two: they go back to her apartment. I will post it as a separate topic when it's ready.

Hi Rick

Couldn't get the mind to work on this. But I will plug it in, recharge and get moving. Did you already post chapter 2?

All the best

Hey Hey

No, I wrote one paragraph and then got sidetracked. I can't decide if they go to her flat and have sex or go straight to the spaceport. What do you think?

Could they have sex on the way to, or at, the spaceport? Maybe sex is achieved simultaneously with another activity. Maybe we have devised a way to partition the mind, with a part for sex that can get on with and enjoy it, whilst the other part controls the vacuuming or eating or driving. Don't tell me, that's what you do already!

Hey Hey, you've been reading too much fantasy. This is hard science fiction. Keep it real. I will post a start to chapter 2 and leave places for you to fill in. Add your post, and I will edit the story to add your portion.

Maybe I should stick to poetry! But I look forward to Chapter 2.

The long-awaited sixth chapter is posted.

I'm glad to see that nobody objected to the explicit sex in some of the installments.