ODD JOB #213
Ron Goulart

THEIR new client arrived in a small neometal carrying case. Jake Pace had been in the large kitchen of their Redding Sector, Connecticut estate dictating a recipe for vegan curry to the database of the botstove. His wife Hildy was loafing in the solarium, idly playing new Goldberg Variations on the banjo.
The voxbox of the secsystem said, "Visitors."
"Be right back," Jake told the stove.
"I can carry on without you, sir," offered the stove.
"Not unless you wish to cease to be." A long, lanky man in his middle thirties, Jake went hurrying into the main living room.
Hildy, long-legged and auburn-haired, was already at one of the high, wide viewindows. Her electronic banjo dangled from her left hand. "It's merely John J. Pilgrim," she informed her approaching husband.
Out on the realgrass back acre a venerable skycar was in the process of executing a wobbly landing. "That souse," muttered Jake.
"John J. quit drinking over a year ago," Hildy reminded, leaning her banjo against a plazchair. "In the spring of 2032. He hasn't had a drink since."
"His previous lifetime of boozing has permanently affected him," observed Jake. "His sense of balance is shot for good and his sense of decorum is worse than it—"
"He's a brilliant attorney." Hildy watched the small rumpled lawyer come scrambling out of the landed blue skycar. "And, keep in mind, Jake, that he's brought Odd Jobs, Inc. some very lucrative cases."
We are, and I say this with all modesty and humility, one of the best private investigating outfits in the land," her husband mentioned. "Therefore, in point of fact, we really don't need a rumdum—an erstwhile rumdum shyster to hustle up jobs for us."
"What's that John J. brought along?"
Pilgrim had tugged a small silvery carrying case out of the rear of the battered skycar. He was squatting now on the grass, seemingly arguing with the neometal box.
"In the old days it would've been a suitcase full of plazflasks of Chateau Discount fortified wine," said Jake.
The silvery case did a backflip, somersaulting on the sward.
"You'd best go out and escort him in," suggested Hildy. "He appears to be having a squabble with his carrying case."
"... and won the plaudits of all fourteen judges of the Supreme Court, including the two androids, I'll have you know," the rumpled little attorney was hollering as Jake came loping up. "So, buster, I can sure as hell sum up your case so an overrated gumshoe like Jake Pace can comprehend it. You're, in my opinion, an extremely arrogant tin-plated piece of—"
"Special alloy, dopey, not tin," corrected a high-pitched little; voice from within the carrying case. "And, keep in mind, that it; is I who hired you to represent me. Therefore, I retain the privi-lege of instructing you, dimbulb, and—"
"You taking up ventriloquism, John?" inquired Jake, halting; nearby.
"You're looking extremely gaunt, Jake," observed the attor-ney, standing up. "Something fatal eating away at you, perhaps?"
"No such luck." Jake grinned one of his bleaker grins. "What's in the carrying case?"
"A fiendish device." Very gingerly, Pilgrim reached out and, after hesitating for a few seconds, grabbed the handle of the neo-metal case. "Were I better able to avoid the temptation of sub-stantial fees, I'd never have hired out to the enclosed gadget nor agreed to ferry it here to consult you and the fair Hildy."
"Hey, halfwit," complained the voice in the case, "I'm not an it. I'm a male, so refer to me as 'he' henceforth."
Frowning, Jake took a look through the grilled side of the car-rying case in Pilgrim's freckled hand. "Some sort of toy?"
"Toy, my ass," said the contents of the case. "I just happen to be, dumbbell, the most sophisticated robot cat in the world. I'm the latest, most advanced version of TomCat™."
"And also, at the present time, a fugitive," added the attorney. "From out on the Coast, in SoCal."
"Why, exactly, have you brought him here?"
"Tom wants to hire you," replied the lawyer.
"I wish to employ Odd Jobs, Inc.," Tom corrected. "Not just you, Pace. I understand that it's Hildy who's the brains of the setup."
After giving a brief sigh, Jake invited, somewhat reluctantly, "Come on in, both of you."

Slouched in a yellow hip-hugger chair, Jake urged, "Give us some details of the damn case."
The chrome-plated robot cat was reared up on the piano bench, whapping out Pinetop's Boogie Woogie on the white upright living room piano. "You were expressing doubts as to my versatility, dimwit," reminded Tom. "Therefore, this demo."
Hildy, sitting on the rubberoid sofa, said, "You have to admit he's got a great left paw, Jake."
"For a cat," he conceded. "Now explain what you want to hire us for—and how you intend to pay our fee."
From his orange hip-hugger chair Pilgrim said, "He's got the dough."
"How can a robot cat, and a runaway at that, have money?"
The attorney, his face taking on an even more sour look, answered, "He's done very well on the stock market. And he wins the National Numbers Game with suspicious frequency."
Smacking out a final chord, the cat ceased playing and settled into a comfortable sprawl on the tufted piano bench. "I didn't rig anything, peckerwood. It's simply that I'm a bit psychic and the winning numbers come to me in dreams."
"Robots don't have dreams," said Jake.
"Sez you," said Tom, glancing over at Hildy. "How'd you come to hook up with such a nebbish?"
"I was just out of the convent school at the time and didn't know any better," she replied, crossing her long legs.
"Geeze," remarked the cat, "living with this goof has turned you into a wiseass."
After coughing into his hand, Pilgrim said, "What it ... what he wants to consult you about is a missing dame who—"
"I'm capable of giving a coherent account of the situation," cut in the robot cat.
"Do so," suggested Jake.
Tom's silver tail switched back and forth twice. "As you probably know, the TomCat™ brand of robot felines is designed and created by BotPets International. Run by Ward McKey, a fughead if there ever was one, and based in the Laguna Sector of Greater Los Angeles in the state of SoCal, BotPets grosses just shy of a billion smackers per year. The majority of this impressive sum comes from the sale of the incredibly popular TomCat™ house pets for the well off and a few—"
"The Fido™ dogbots net over $400,000,000," put in the attorney.
"Dogs. Fooey," observed the cat. "Okay, we're getting close to the nub of the problem. The head of Research & Development/ Cat Division is a lovely, intelligent young woman named Mari-jane Kraft. She—"
"The little dickens has got a terrific crush on this dame," supplied the attorney.
"Hush, John," advised Hildy, frowning at him and shaking her head. "Let Tom talk."
Rising up on his hind legs, the cat bowed toward her. "You are a rose among thorns, dear lady," he said, settling down again. "For over a year the most expensive model cat has been able to talk. That was an innovation that Marijane came up with and—"
"I thought," said Jake, "you mentioned that she was intelligent."
Looking over at Hildy, the robot cat inquired, "How long have you been married to this gink?"
"Eleven years."
"Oy, such fortitude," said Tom. "I happen to be the working model of the latest and most advanced robot cat. Marijane fin-ished me just three months ago and has been refining my—"
"You became independently wealthy in just three months?' asked Jake.
"Listen, bozo, I did that in three weeks," answered the cat. "The point is, I look upon Marijane with considerable fondness."
Hildy said, "Something's happened to her?"
"Exactly. Six days ago she disappeared."
Pilgrim added, "It's his belief that she disappeared. BotPets maintains that she sent in her resignation while visiting friends."
"Friends?" Tom arched his metallic back. "Who in the heck would have friends in the People's Republic of Ohio?"
Hildy said, "Ohio seceded from the Union back in 2027 and elected that fat guy Dictator."
Nodding, Jake said, "Vincent Eagleman, yeah, founder of the Homegrown Fascist Party. Why'd your friend Marijane journey to the People's Republic of Ohio?"
Tom gave a shake of his silvery head. "All she told me before she took off was that something seriously wrong was going on and she wanted to investigate."
Hildy asked, "Something wrong in Ohio? Something wrong at BotPets?"
"I suspect a conspiracy twixt the two, a conspiracy that involves both Vincent Eagleman and Ward McKey. They're quite probably in cahoots and up to no good."
"What are they conspiring about?" Jake sat up.
"I don't know for sure," answered the cat. "I'm assuming, though, it involves one of the BotPets products."
"Whereabouts in Ohio did she go?"
"Youngstown, the capital of the republic."
"Did she contact you at all after she got there?"
"The first two days, yep."
"How?"
The robot cat scratched his silvery side with a hind paw. "Marijane installed a voxphone in my interior. That's not standard equipment, but she and I were pals, and she used to phone most nights after she got home and—-"
She stopped communicating with you from Youngstown?" asked Hildy.
Exactly, ma'am. She ceased calling after the second day, and the Ritz Mussolini Hotel in Youngstown claims she checked out." "Going where?"
No forwarding address. She never came back to Greater Los Angeles, though," said Tom forlornly. "Two days after she disappeared, McKey voxed all the BotPets staff to announce that
Marijane had resigned for personal reasons. He knew everyone would join with him in wishing her well wherever she decided to go."
"Which was where?"
"He didn't mention that."
Jake rose up out of his chair. "And she hasn't called you or contacted you since?"
"If she had would I have furtively arranged my escape from the R&D facility in GLA, given this bedraggled ambulance chaser an outrageous retainer and hired him to convey me to Odd Jobs, Inc. as secretively as possible?"
"Probably not," conceded Jake, starting to pace on the thermal rug. "What do you think, Hildy?"
"She found out something, they shut her down."
"She's not dead," insisted the cat.
"You can't be positive. And you have to be prepared for—"
"I told you, Marijane designed me to be a bit psychic. So I know she's alive."
"Be nice," said Jake, "if you were psychic enough to tell us where."
Hildy asked him, "Want to take the case? Sounds interesting."
Stopping near the piano bench, he frowned down at the robot cat. "Did Pilgrim explain our fee structure?"
"Sure. $100,000 in front—nonrefundable. Another hundred thou if you find her, no matter in what shape," answered Tom. "Plus a bonus of $100,000 should you also clear up whatever mess Marijane was looking into."
"Can you afford that?"
The cat made a brief metallic purring sound. "There's $100,000 in your Banx account as of now, Sherlock. So do we have a deal?" He held up his right forepaw.
Jake shook it. "Indeed we do."

As his skycar sped westward, the day ceased to wane and the sky outside commenced growing lighter. Pushing the Automatic Flight button on the dash panel, Jake leaned back in his seat and rubbed the palm of his hand across his forehead a few times.
The pixphone buzzed.
"Okay, yeah," he said.
The slightly chubby bald man who appeared on the rectangular screen was wearing a two-piece plaid bizsuit and sitting on an under-inflated neoprene airchair. He was surrounded by modified computer screens, databoxes, and a jumbled assortment of electronic tapping equipment. "Did I outline my new billing system thoroughly when you hired me a couple hours ago?"
"You did, Steranko."
Steranko the Siphoner said, "So my initial bill of $1,000 won't shock or stun—"
"$850 was the aforementioned quotation."
"Naw, it couldn't have been, Jacob, my boy, since my new fee list has been in effect since last Xmas."
"$850 is all that Odd Jobs, Inc. is going to pay, be that as it may."
The small informant sighed, and at the same time an exhalation of air came wheezing out of his inflated chair. "Were it not for the fact that I've been doing business with you and that scrawny missus of yours for untold aeons, Jake, I would never put up with your high-handed—"
"Before any more aeons unfold, Steranko, tell me what you've found out so far. Assuming you have found out anything."
"Hey, I happen to be, as you well know, chum, the best tapper on Earth," he said. "Or on the Moon for that matter. How about $900?"
"$850."
Sighing again, Steranko reluctantly said, "All right. Here's a one-minute animated ID pic of Ethan Greenway, the lad your client claims was the missing Marijane's dearest friend at BotPets."
A tanned, just barely handsome man of forty appeared on the screen. Smiling amiably, he displayed his full face and then his left and right profiles. "My name is Ethan Greenway. I'm the Associate Copychief in the Fido™ Division of BotPets International."
“You emphasized the word claims. You think this guy wasn't her beau?"
"Far be it from me to contradict a robot kitty gifted with speech," said the Siphoner. "Marijane and this boob did date now and then . . . However."
"However what?"
"I have to dig into this a bit further, Jake, but I'm already getting strong hints that friend Greenway was actually an Internal Affairs Agent for BotPets. A fellow who checked on employees who weren't trusted completely."
"Meaning he might have had something to do with her vanishing?"
The hairless Steranko shrugged one shoulder. "I'd seriously consider that possibility, yes."
"Where can I find him?"
"At the moment he's attending the West Coast Robotic Pets Trade Show in the Malibu Sector of Greater Los Angeles. It's being held at the Malibu Stilt Ritz Hotel now through Friday."
Jake nodded. "What about Marsha Roebeck?"
"You now see her before you."
A heavyset woman of about fifty, with short-cropped gray hair, appeared on the screen and went through a ritual similar to Greenway's. "I'm Marsha Roebeck, a Director Second Class of the TomCat™ Division R&D Department at BotPets International."
"Okay, she's the one Tom says helped smuggle him out of the joint," said Jake. "If I can talk to her, I can maybe—"
"That, old buddy, is going to be tough," cut in the plaid-suited informant. "Apparently the lady came down with a rare Moon Base virus and is in the Isolation Ward at the Thorpe Private Hospital in the Santa Monica Sector of Greater LA."
"No visitors, huh?"
"Only medics."
"I can impersonate one if need be."
"Be careful, since the lady is being very closely and belligerently guarded."
"All the more reason to have a talk with her," said Jake. "Did you come up with anything else?"
"You've already had more than $850 worth of pertinent infor-mation."
"Okay, dig us up another $850 batch, and I'll get in touch with you once I get to SoCal."
"How much is that pussycat paying you folks?"
"Sufficient."
Steranko said, "It's a pity you don't pass along a bit more of the outrageous fees you bilk out of gullible customers. Were this an equable society, my share would automatically—"
"Talk to you again in a few hours." Jake ended the call.

The robot security guard gave a long, low appreciative whistle. "Gosh all hemlock," he exclaimed out of his coppery voxgrid, "you surely are right pretty, Miss Beemis."
"I am that," agreed Hildy, holding out a packet of expertly forged IDs to the mechanical man at the entrance to the Bingo Heaven Multidome in the heart of Youngstown. She was a silvery blonde now, deeply tanned, wearing a short one-piece sinsilk skirtsuit. "I have an appointment with Mr. Leon Bismarck."
After ogling her again, the robot said, "I hope you'll forgive my overtly masculine reaction, Miss Beemis, but I used to be a doorman up in Orbiting Vegas II, and I was programmed to react positively to chorines."
"One wouldn't think such behavior would be considered acceptable in the more conservative Republic of Ohio."
The big coppery hot nodded in agreement. "I was rushed down here to fill in after some malcontents blew up my predecessor," he explained. "I haven't had my outlook modified." He held her fabricated credentials up to the scanner panel built into his wide coppery chest. "Ah, Miss Theresa Beemis, Contributing Editor of Militant Chic. Isn't that the multimedia mag with nearly 6,000,000 subscribers per week in fascist dictatorships worldwide?"
"Nearly 7,000,000," Hildy corrected as he returned her IDs.
"My statistics base hasn't been upgraded since they dumped me here either," the robot told her. "Well, you'll find Mr. Bismarck's office in Dome Three of Bingo Heaven. On the second level right above the Virtual Bingo pavilion."
Thanks, and good luck on your eventual overhaul."
"You sure are some looker," said the robot, standing aside to let her pass into the building.

"Orderly, get over here at once!" cried Jake.
He now had shaggy blond hair, spurious retinal patterns, altered fingerprints, and a small fuzzy mustache. He was wearing a two-piece off-white medsuit and standing at the reception desk of the Isolation Ward on the Second Below-Ground Floor of the Thorpe Private Hospital.
The middle-sized human orderly came trotting over. "May I be of service, Doctor ..." He leaned closer to read the name on Jake's counterfeit digital name tag. "Doctor Bushwanger."
Jake, a bit disdainfully, pointed at the android nurse sitting behind the aluminum reception counter. "This mechanism is obviously malfunctioning, which I must say does not speak highly of your facility."
Blankly staring, the white-clad android said, "Gulp gulp gulp," paused and then said it again.
Two minutes earlier Jake had felt compelled to use a disabler on the andy because she was asking questions he wasn't prepared to answer. That sometimes happened on rush impersonations.
"What the heck's wrong, Irma?" the curly-haired young man asked, going up on tiptoe and staring across the counter at her.
"Gulp gulp gulp."
"This is all very vexing," observed Jake in an annoyingly nasal voice. "I didn't fly in from the Tijuana Sector of Greater LA to be delayed by a mechanism that's obviously gone flooey."
"Why are you here, Dr. Bushwanger?"
"Hasn't your Chief of Staff, Dr. Erringer, notified the entire crew that he was brining me in to consult on the Marsha Roebeck case?"
"I thought Dr. Erringer was on a second honeymoon in the Safe Zone of Argentina."
"Be that as it may, he sent for me." Jake impatiently jiggled the medical bag he was carrying. "I happen to be the leading expert on lunar viruses in this hemisphere."
"Patient Roebeck is in an Extreme Isolation room, Doctor, and you can't—"
"I'd hate to have to file a Negative Performance Report on you, Gribble."
"My name is Gibbons."
"Have your ID tag refonted then, Gibbons," suggested Jake, even more impatiently. "But first, take me to my patient immediately."
Gibbons glanced at the still gulping android nurse. "Very well, Doctor," he said resignedly. "I can't afford to have another black mark on my record. Come along."

Using the compact needle gun on the plump woman's upper arm, Jake said, "This stuff ought to counteract the control drugs they've been shooting into you, Miss Roebeck."
"I am completely happy here. I will make no trouble for anyone," she droned. Wearing a polka dot hospital gown, she was sitting up in a gray floating bed at the center of the small gray room. "I will forget all that . . . What the hell is this?" Marsha blinked, scowled at Jake. "Are you one of those bastards who want to hurt Marijane?"
"On the contrary," Jake assured her. "I've disabled the monitoring gear in your room, but they'll tumble to that fairly soon. So tell me what you know about—"
"And who the Billy Jesus might you be, jocko?" "Jake Pace from Odd Jobs, Inc.," he told her. "What we—" "So Tom did get to you."
"That he did. Now what do you know about what's happened to Marijane?"
"After I smuggled that little dingus out of there, I did some nosing around on my own," she said. "That wasn't, as it turned out, so very smart. They grabbed me, dumped me in this hole, and diddled with my coco so that I was about three steps away from being a vegetable." "Who put you here?"
She answered, "It was that prissy Ethan Greenway. I tried to tell poor Marijane that he wasn't on the up and up, but she sort or felt sorry for the gink. I found out, too late, that Greenway's a company spy. He reports directly to McKey, and he found out that Marijane was on to something. When she took off for Ohio to dig further, they alerted them back there to detain her." "What was she on to?"
Marsha shook her head. "All I know is that it has something to do with a shipment of 1,500 TomCat™ bots that were sent to Eagleman, the dictator of the Republic of Ohio," she answered.
"I'm pretty sure, too, that they have a clandestine R&D department, one they never told Marijane or me about."
"Anything different about that shipment?"
"I suspect they'd been modified some, but I don't know how."
Jake stood. "Can you pretend you're still in a stupor?"
"Easy."
"Soon as I talk to Greenway, I'll send a crew of local trouble-shooters in to spring you from this joint," he promised. "The guy leading them will probably be a mercenary name of Oskar Tor-tuga, just back from New Guatemala."
"Is he cute?"
"Not to me, but you may react differently." He eased out of the gray room.

This is neat," observed Leon Bismarck, a rotund man of fifty clad in a three-piece yellow bizsuit with sinfur trim. "Our truth disks are much bulkier." He was gazing with admiration at the tiny silver oval she'd just slapped onto his fat left wrist.
Hildy, sitting with long legs crossed on the edge of his wide tin desk, said, "You're supposed to answer my queries, Bismarck, not comment on the equipment."
"Fire away, sister. You sure are cute, and that's the truth."
"Where's Marijane Kraft?"
Bismarck's official title was Press Secretary to Dictator Eagle-man, but some information Hildy had obtained from an informant of her own while flying out here to the Republic of Ohio had alerted her to the fact that he was also in charge of intelligence operations. Posing as a reporter with Militant Chic eager to interview him about the new paramilitary uniforms he'd helped design for all the republic's schoolchildren had, as she'd anticipated, enabled her to get an immediate interview.
After, very skillfully, incapacitating the Press Secretary in his private office, Hildy had slapped a truth disk on him.
"She ain't here," he said now, his buttery voice taking on a slight drone.
"Where then?"
"We shipped her back to Greater Los Angeles for a mindwipe."
"Shipped her where?"
"To the Thorpe Private Hospital in the Santa Monica Sector of GLA. They do very good work, and we often send political dissidents out there. Eventually I hope to build our own—"
"What did Marijane find out?"
Bismarck chuckled. "Well, now, ma'am, that's an interesting story."
"Tell me," she suggested.

Jake was heading toward the Malibu Sector in his rented landcar when the skyvan full of Ethel Mermans crashed a few dozen yards ahead of him on the yellow stretch of reconstituted beach.
The big blue-and-gold van had come wobbling down out of the blurred yellow afternoon sky, producing raspy wailing noises. It hit the sand on its belly, sliding and bouncing and sending up swirls of beach grit mingled with sooty smoke, and rattled to a halt. When the twin doors at the rear of the beached skyvan flapped open, at least a dozen android replicas of the twentieth century Broadway singer Ethel Merman came spilling out.
Jake had, by this time, pulled his vehicle to the side of the highway, parked, disembarked and gone running toward the crashed van.
As the Ethel Merman andies hit the sand, some of them were activated and, staggering to their feet, began singing. The majority were belting out Cole Porter's Anything Goes, but at least two were rendering Irving Berlin's Doin' What Comes Naturally.
When Jake was a few feet from the pilot compartment, he head a faint cry, all but drowned out by the chorus of Ethel Mermans. 'Help, please," requested a female voice.
Jake approached the compartment door, carefully opened it. "Anything broken?"
There was a slim blonde young woman of no more than nineteen slumped in the pilot's seat. She was wearing a two-piece, short-skirted flysuit. "I don't think so, except rny ankle . . . that one ... feels funny."
"Unhook your safety gear. I'll lift you out."
"That's awfully kind of you. I feel like such an enormous vhipjack crashing this way." She unbound and unzipped.
He hefted her out. "Want to try to stand?"
She grimaced. "Okay, if you hold me up." Very gingerly she planted both booted feet on the stirred up sand. "That doesn't hurt much. I'm guess I'm all right. My name's Bermuda Polon-sky, by the way,"
"Jake Pace." He stepped free of her.
"Not Jake Pace the internationally renowned private investigator and musical great?"
"I'm a pretty good detective, yeah," he admitted. "Music, however, is simply a hobby."
"You played at the Moonport Jazz Festival last autumn, didn't you? A marvelous bebop medley, consisting of wonderful renditions of jazz tunes in the style of Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, and Elmo Hope."
"That was me. How'd you hear about it?"
"I was going with the fellow who played oboe in the Julliard Neobop Ensemble and I was up there," explained Bermuda. "It's a wonder you didn't notice me, the way I was jumping up and down and applauding wildly after you'd . . . Oh, shit."
"Something?"
"I just now noticed that my vanload of Ethel Mermans is scat-tered all to hither and yon and bunged up."
"They can be repaired and—"
"Oh, I'm certain they can," agreed Bermuda. "But, you see,I was supposed to deliver them to the Malibu Sector Bop & Jazz Festival by three this afternoon."
"It's nearly three now."
The young woman gave a forlorn sigh. "These androids make up the Ethel Merman Choir, and they're scheduled to perform a medley of jazz standards at 3:15," she told him. "Whatever am I to do since . . . Hey, wait a sec. Can I prevail upon you to substitute?"
"I can't sing like even one Ethel Merman."
"No, I meant could you do your bebop piano medley," she asked hopefully. "Unless, of course, you were en route to some important rendezvous."
Jake considered. "I suppose I can spare you an hour," he decided. "Be a shame to have a gap in the program."
"Oh, that's marvelous," Bermuda said, smiling up at him. "I'll just pop into the cab and phone the ... damn." Her left leg gave out suddenly, and she dropped to her knees on the yellow sand.
Jake lunged to help her up.
Bermuda, smiling again, put an arm around his neck to steady herself.
There was something sharp in her hand. It jabbed into Jake's neck.
Before he could express his chagrin at once again allowing his vanity about his music to lead him astray, he passed out.

Hildy tried to contact Jake again. She was less than an hour away from SoCal and this was her third attempt since leaving the Republic of Ohio. Her skycar was carrying her toward Greater Los Angeles, where she was assuming she and her husband could work out a plan for rescuing Marijane Kraft from the Thorpe Private Hospital.
But he was answering neither his skycar phone nor his portable communicator.
Hunching slightly in the pilot seat, she tapped out a call to John J. Pilgrim's GLA offices.
TomCat™ answered the call. "Ah, the competent side of the Odd Jobs team," he said, his silvery tail switching. "Well, sister, have you found my pal Marijane?"
"We know where she is."
"Where, pray tell?"
"At the Thorpe Private Hospital. They're planning, if they haven't already, to use a mindwipe on—"
"There's a coincidence for you," said the robot cat. "That happens to be where your halfwit hubby is locked up even as we speak."
"What are you—"
Scram, get away from the damn phone." The rumpled attor-ney had appeared in the background to scoop Tom off the phone chair. "If you're hiding out here, you shouldn't be answering calls."
"Hey, I've got built-in caller ID, so I knew—" "What's happened to Jake?" Hildy asked John J. Pilgrim. The lawyer made one of his sour faces. "It appears he walked into some kind of trap, Hildy."
"I bet somebody asked him to play trombone in a Dixieland band or piano in—"
"Don't have the details on that," said the lawyer. "Steranko called me about an hour ago. While he was digging up some information for Jake, he came across the fact that Jake himself was being held at Thorpe now."
"Steranko's not all that reliable."
"The Siphoner doesn't much like you either, kid, which is why he passed the information on to me," said Pilgrim. "I was just about to call you."
"I'll be arriving out there in less than an hour, John," she told him. "Get floor plans of the hospital and send them to me. I'll work out a—"
"I already printed out the Thorpe floor plans, sis," put in the robot cat, jumping up onto Pilgrim's rumpled lap. "And I've got a pretty neat plan figured out. The two of us can—"
"That's not wise. Tom. Somebody's liable to recognize you."
"Didn't I get around to telling you I was an expert at disguise? When next you see me, you'll think I'm an everyday alley cat," he assured her. "Plus which, I've got all sorts of built-in weapons. And although I'm not all that enthusiastic about your mate, I really have to be in on rescuing Marijane."
After a few seconds, Hildy said, "All right, we'll work together. But I'll cook up the plan"

Jake awakened in an uncomfortable gray restraining chair. "This is not the Malibu Sector Bop & Jazz Festival," he realized.
"A fine champion you turned out to be." Marsha Roebeck was strapped into another chair across the small gray room from him. "Tell me to expect some thug named Tortuga to come rescue me and then get tossed in here yourself."
"I apologize," said Jake.
"I'm sure Mr. Pace meant well," said Marijane Kraft, who was restrained in the third chair a few feet to Jake's right. "And he; hasn't been any stupider than I was by barging into—"
"You're an amateur, dear, and this clunk is a pro who—"
"Let's not give up hope," advised Jake, glancing around the gray room. "And let's not discuss escape plans, since our cell is no doubt monitored."
"Escape plans? Hooey," observed Marsha. "They're going to mindwipe the lot of us sometime later today."
"Who are they exactly?"
"Since I was only pretending to be stupefied, I got a look at some of them," said Marsha. "Several hospital staffers are involved, obviously, but I also saw McKey himself once."
"The head of BotPets, yeah," said Jake.
"These goons are also going to give us a dose of truth spray," added Marsha. "McKey is eager to know where TomCat™ has got to."
"Is Tom okay?" asked Marijane, a slender dark-haired woman of about thirty.
"Far as I know," Jake told her. "Now, before we all start suffering from forgetfulness, exactly what did you find out about those 1,500 robot cats that were shipped to the Republic of Ohio?"
"It's very distressing," she replied and began to explain.

Whispering, Hildy mentioned, "You're not a very convincing cat."
"I am a cat," reminded Tom, whom she was carrying under her arm.
"What I was referring to was your feline disguise," she amplified. "The sinfur is a little tacky and I really wish we'd had time to do a better job of—"
"Don't blame me if your halfwit hubby got himself abducted to this dump and you had to rush over here to rescue the poor goof," said the robot cat. "I think you're still miffed because the info as to his plight came to you by way of that skinhead Steranko, whom you loathe and—"
'I'm also still a bit miffed that you insisted on tagging along." 'Listen, cookie, I'm essential to this daring rescue scheme. The plan we've contrived to rescue your hapless spouse and, more im-portantly, Marijane, calls upon me to play a crucial role," re-winded TomCat™. "And look at the thanks I get for risking my-—"
"Hush now, we're at the hospital entrance."
The plaz doors at the top of the winding ramp slid aside and Hildy, who was wearing a conservative three-piece gray neowool bizsuit, entered the main lobby of the three-tier Thorpe Private Hospital.
"Rowr," said Tom.
"Not a very convincing meow."
"A lot you know, sister. I was playing a caz of an authentic field recording of a real damn cat."
"Even so." She went striding up to the boomerang-shaped tin reception desk.
"How may I help you, ma'am?" inquired Gibbons.
"Ah, this is most impressive, a live receptionist," she said in a vaguely French accent. She smiled and brushed a strand of dark hair from her forehead. "Usually the receptionists are androids or robots."
The curly-haired young man pointed a thumb at the ceiling. "Usually ours are, too, but they had to transfer Ida up to the Extreme Isolation wing to take Irma's place," he explained. "Some loon named Dr. Bushwanger went berserk yesterday and used I some kind of fritzer on her."

Hildy gave a surprised gasp. "But I'm Dr. Bushwanger."
Gibbons sat up. "One Dr. Bushwanger is enough. I'm afraid I'll—"
"I assure you I am the authentic Dr. Frances Bushwanger. If' some slattern has been impersonating me, I'll see that she—"
"This was a gent. Tall, lanky bloke with—"
"Rowr rowr," said Tom.
"Oh, and we don't allow pets."
"This isn't a pet, this is my companion. His name is Mutton.
"Rising from his chair, the orderly asked, "Muffin?"
"Mutton."
"Odd name for a cat."
"Don't blame me, he picked it out."
"The cat named himself?"
"No, actually I was alluding to my husband," she said, smiling: again. "Now might I see Dr. Thorpe?"
"Afraid she's away on a second honeymoon with Dr. Erringer."
"How disappointing. She and I are old chums, and I was hoping—"
"Rowr. Meow." Twisting, Tom jumped free of Hildy's grasp, hit the multicolored plaztile floor and, as planned, went speeding off down a corridor.
"We can't allow cats to run loose in here, Dr. Bushwanger." Gibbon hopped out from behind the counter, taking off in pursuit of the disguised robot cat. "And judging by that fur of his, he's also suffering from a bad case of mange."
"It's actually stress-related." She kept pace with him.
According to the floor plans of the hospital, the Security Control Center was around the bend and at the end of the corridor Tom had gone streaking down.
When Gibbons and Hildy rounded the bend, they saw that the wide plazdoor marked SecCon was standing half open.
"That's not supposed to be unlocked." Gibbons slowed and approached the doorway with caution.
"Be careful, there's no telling what we're liable to find."
"Good gravy!" exclaimed the orderly from inside the room. "All of the security staff plus the secbot are sprawled at their workstations and apparently comatose."
"What about my Mutton?" Hildy crossed the threshold.
"I don't see him, but that's the least of our worries."
"Nope, dimbulb, it should be your top worry." Rearing up atop a rubberoid desk, Tom pointed a shaggy paw at him.
"How come you can talk?"
Instead of an answer, Gibbons got a yellowish beam from the cat's built-in stungun.

Jake, who'd done a dissertation on Houdini while earning one of his earliest PhDs, succeeded in unobtrusively deactivating his restraints in a little over two hours after he'd awakened in the bowels of the private hospital.
For the past several minutes, giving the impression that he was still trussed up, he remained sitting, watchfully, in his gray chair. He'd done the rearranging of his bonds so deftly and subtly that he was almost certain nobody monitoring their cell would've noticed. He planned to remain in the chair until somebody came into the room, then he'd move and improvise a way out.
"Whatever's the matter with you, Pace?" inquired Marsha. "You've been twitching and twisting for hours."
"It's an unfortunate neurological condition," he answered quietly.
"How's that again? Speak up."
"I'm suffering from Reisberson's Syndrome," he said in a somewhat louder voice. "It causes uncontrollable hyperactivity now and then. I'm fine now."
"Good, then maybe you can cease thrashing about and come up with some way to get us out of this dump."
"Marsha, don't heckle Mr. Pace," said Marijane. "After all, he wouldn't be in this pickle if he hadn't attempted to find me."
"Good intentions don't cancel colossal screwups, honey."
The metal cell door started to quiver, then began rattling.
Jake straightened up in his chair, alert. Producing an odd keening noise, the door slid open. Shedding the straps, Jake dived forward.
"Sit and meditate," advised Tom on the threshold. "We don't need any derring-do from you, buster."
Smiling, Hildy stepped carefully into the room, stun gun in hand. "It's us, Jake. You can relax."
Taking a slow deep breath, he straightened up out of his crouch. "You heard about my plight, huh?" He commenced releasing the two women from their chairs.
"Steranko found out you were here, and I found out that Marijane Kraft was here," she answered. "Marsha Roebeck is a bonus."
"I take it you're the sensible half of Odd Jobs, Inc.," said the plump woman as she stood up, shedding her bonds.
"We're a team," answered Hildy. "Sometimes I save him, sometimes he saves me. It makes for an interesting marriage—so far anyway."
From out in the corridor a gruff voice ordered, "Nobody move. A wall of weapons is waiting out here."
Jake called, "Oskar, you're on our side."
A large, wide, tanned man with a shaggy blond beard appeared in the doorway. He lowered his stun gun to his side. "We're just getting around to rescuing the lady you mentioned, Jake, old man.".
"I appreciate that, Oskar," he said. "But we've taken care of that. However, you and your boys can help us get out of here safely."
"A piece of cake," said the mercenary, grinning. "You're right," Marsha told Jake. "He's not cute."

Jake grinned, clicking off the vidwall in the media room of their Redding Sector estate. "The Newz account of BotPet's collaboration with Dictator Eagleman was fairly accurate," he observed. "And they gave a handsome plug to Odd Jobs, Inc."
"Best of all," said Hildy, "they didn't mention how you walked right into Greenway's trap, nor how you had to be bailed out by me and a robot cat."
"Sometimes my altruism gets the best of my judgment," he admitted, settling into a rubberoid armchair facing the one his wife was sitting in. "But keep in mind, that when you arrived, I'd freed myself and was about to—"
"Altruism isn't the word I'd pick," she said. "Hubris would be high on my list, followed by vanity, egomania or—"
"Hey, they seemingly wanted a gifted jazz pianist, which I happen to be," he pointed out. "Admittedly I could have been a mite less trusting."
"Letting a frail teenager knock you out and dump you in—"
"She was nearly twenty."
"Then ending up in the same hospital with Marijane Kraft and that Roebeck woman, all of you candidates for mindwipes."
"Made the rescue operation much easier." He stood up and started to pace the neowood floor. "I appreciate you and Tom helping get me out of there. Also keep in mind that Oskar Tortuga and the crew of former commandos I hired to spring Marsha Roebeck busted into the place shortly after you arrived. So it's quite possible they could've rescued us without your having to—"
'Some rescue team you hired. They almost used a stungun on me."
Jake made a let's-stop gesture with both hands. "Be that as it may, Odd Jobs, Inc. did what it was hired for," he reminded her. "We located Marijane, rescued her, and found out what was going on. As a result, several high-placed BotPets execs— including Greenway and the CEO himself, McKey, are being held for kidnapping and aiding a foreign government—namely Ohio."
"You think what Eagleman, McKey, and Greenway had in mind would've worked?"
"Well, the 1,500 specially modified TomCat™ bots were designed to work as spies, saboteurs, and occasional assassins," answered Jake. "If Eagleman had succeeded in planting most of them in the homes of key political figures and businessmen in Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan, it could've helped him in his plan to expand the territory of his republic." He shrugged. "Maybe it would've worked, maybe not."
"When Marijane found out what they were planning and tried to track the doctored robot cats, they grabbed her," said Hildy. "She wasn't too smart, trusting Greenway and confiding in him and then investigating this on her own. Of course, BotPets weren't too bright in the way they went about trying to silence her."
"They didn't know we'd be brought into the case."
"Had they known a formidable bebopper would be unleashed, they might have called the whole thing off."
"What say we call a truce?"
Hildy said, "Okay by me."
He moved closer to her chair, leaned to kiss her.
"Visitors," announced a dangling voxbox.
Jake kissed his wife, then moved to a viewindow and unblanked it.
A sleek crimson skycar was landing outside.
When it settled on the grass and the cabin door popped open, Hildy said, "It's Marijane Kraft, and she's got Tom with her. I'll go out and escort them in."
"Does that robot cat have to come in?"
"Certainly. He helped save you."
"Okay," conceded Jake, "But tell him to stay away from the piano."