Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe 6 страница

Instead of opening fire immediately, Hosato took a moment to plan his attack. In theory, he should have nothing to fear. His suit gave him invisibility and therefore invulnerability. If the robots’ camera eyes did not register a human form, they would not fire. Even his blaster was rigged to establish contact through his palm, and shared the same light-relay mechanism as his suit. He was totally invisible and safe—in theory. Of course, relying on theories was a sure way to guar­antee an early retirement.

There was always the possibility that cameras were not the robots’ sole means of sensory input. Heat sensors, movement detectors, any one of a number of devices could detect his presence, and then he would be in a shoot-out with three machines that didn’t miss.

The robots were a scant fifteen feet away. His plan of action set, Hosato opened fire.

Standing off-center to the right of the corridor, he fired point-blank at the lead robot. Dropping to one knee, he fired again immediately at the robot at the rear of the formation. Not waiting to observe the re­sults of his first two shots, he dived to his left, rolling to the side of the corridor, and from a prone position fired again at the final robot.

He rolled again, still prone, to the center of the cor­ridor, and froze, studying his targets. Observing no sign of continued activity from the robots, he drew a deep breath and waited for his heartbeat to return to its normal pacing. Realization suddenly struck him. Between his second and third shots, the last robot had returned fire, the bolt from its blaster sizzling the air over Hosato as he rolled across the corridor.

He shot a quick glance behind him to check his re­treat route. The smoldering body of a security guard lay just inside the door.

That’s what the robot had fired at. It was reacting to the security guard’s intrusion into the corridor. Had Hosato been on his feet, he would have been caught in the line of fire, invisible or not!

He suddenly saw another blaster being poked cau­tiously into the corridor, a blaster held by a hand with a uniform sleeve showing.

“Hold your fire!” he called, quickly breaking the seal on his suit.

He rolled to his feet and confronted the bewildered guard who cautiously followed the blaster into the corridor.

“How did you—?” the guard began.

“How do we get into the main computer building?” Hosato demanded.

“We can’t!” the guard responded automatically.

“Look, don’t you understand?” Hosato pressured. “If we can knock out that computer, the robots will be minus a brain. That’s where they’re being controlled from.”

The guard’s face hardened. “That’s a top-security area,” he recited. “Orders state that unauthorized per­sonnel—”

Hosato almost hit the man in his frustration but gamed control of himself.

“Where’s Sasha?” he demanded. “We’ll get your or­ders changed right now.”

“The chiefs been hurt,” the guard informed him. “Just before we collapsed the main tunnel, she...”

But Hosato was gone, pushing his way into the maintenance shop. Chaos reigned in the shop. There were people packed into every available space, all shouting at each other. Bits of conversation came to Hosato as he made his way through the crowd.

“it’s got to be the main programming. They couldn’t just...”

“has been in the family for two hundred years, and you just...”

“the brains God gave an ant, you’d quite pok­ing around in the mechanics and help us figure...”

“Billy Billy Maria, have you seen...?”

“long until they burn a new corridor, we’ve got to...”

He found her at last. She was lying on the floor. James was trying to keep the crowd from stepping on her, but with limited success.

“Hosato!” the boy cried, spying him as he covered the final distance through the press of bodies. “Sasha’s—”

“I heard,” he said, dropping to one knee beside the fallen security chief. “How is she?”

It was a rhetorical question, and he ignored the boy’s answer as he took in the situation at a glance. Sasha’s right arm was gone below the elbow. There was no bleeding, probably cauterized by the same blaster bolt that took her arm, but she was in deep shock.

“Carolyn’s dead,” James shouted in Hosato’s ear.

“Who?” he replied absently.

“Carolyn. The red-headed girl in your room. When we were...”

Someone, pushed backward by the crowd, walked directly across Sasha’s body. Hosato pushed savagely at the legs, then stood up, casting about desperately. A familiar face caught his eye.

“Doc!” he called.

The maintenance man was embroiled in an argu­ment with a red-faced couple and didn’t respond. Hosato stretched out, got hold of his arm, and physi­cally dragged h»m out of the conversation.

“We’ve got an injured person down here, Doc. Is there someplace we can take her where she won’t get trampled?”

“Try the garage. Rick chased everybody out of there while he was working on the crawler.”

“Thanks!” Hosato said, releasing his hold on the mechanic.

“Say,” the man asked, “are you headed back there?”

Hosato was scanning the crowd, trying to pick a path. “Yes,” he replied absently.

“Can you take these to Rick?” the man said, forc­ing a wad of papers into Hosato’s hand. “Maybe he can make head or tails of them.”

“Sure,” Hosato acknowledged. “Come on, James.”

He stooped and picked Sasha up in his arms. Even with James breaking a path through the crowd, it was hard maneuvering. The door to the garage was worst of all. There were so many people in front of it Hosato had to momentarily set Sasha down and physi-

cally shove people away before he could get it open. As it was, he and James barely got Sasha through be­fore the jostling crowd slammed the door shut behind them.

“I told you to stay out of... Oh, Hayama.” Rick emerged from under the sand crawler he was working on. “What’s.-.Oh, my God!”

“She’ll be okay,” Hosatc said, easing his burden to the ground. “How’s the work going?”

“Nearly complete,” Suzi pronounced, gliding into view from the far side of the crawler. “Another five minutes of uninterrupted work and the vehicle will be fully functional.”

“That’s right,” Rick confirmed. “That’s quite a 'bot you have there, Hayama. I’m going to have a whole shipload of questions for you when all this is over, but in the meantime...”

“Right,” Hosato responded. “I’ll get out of your way. Oh.” He suddenly realized he was still hold­ing the wad of papers. “Here, Doc, said you should take a look at these.”

The mechanic took the bundle and frowned at it. “What are they?”

“I don’t know,” Hosato admitted. “Doc just said—” Their heads came around with a jerk. Muffled screams, mixed with the unmistakable sound of blaster fire, were coming from the door.

“My God,” Rick gasped'. They’re in the shop.”

“James. Get Sasha into the crawler. That one, the one that’s working. Suzi. Give him a hand.”

Hosato turned to Rick and lowered his voice. “Get this thing fired up and ready to roll. I’ll see if there’s anything we can do.”

Rick nodded and darted toward the controls of the working sand crawler, and Hosato turned toward the door.

The screams were redoubling. Unseen fists were pounding at the door to the garage. In a flash, Hosato realized what was happening. The door opened into the shop, and the panicked people were shoving against it, prevented by their own numbers from get­ting it open.

With a curse he ran to the door and threw his weight against it. Then he backed up and launched a flying double kick into the door.

The door didn’t budge an inch.

Hammering on the door, he tried shouting Instruc­tions to the people on the other side. Finally he stopped, realizing the futility of his actions. Simultane­ously he realized the screams from the shop were dy­ing out, replaced by eerie silence and the sporadic sound of blasters.

He turned and sprinted for the crawler, fighting back the cold, sick feeling in his stomach.

Hanging over Rick’s shoulder, Hosato peered curi­ously at the piloting viewscreen as the sand crawler jolted its way across the rough terrain.

“How far is it to the Ravensteel complex?” he asked, swaying as the crawler plunged down another gully.

“Not far,” Rick assured him. “I’ve never been there myself, but I know we’re working opposite ends of the same mineral vein. I figure we should be there by morning... noon tomorrow at the latest.”

Hosato squinted skeptically at the viewscreen. “That’s pretty rough terrain out here.”

“Don’t worry. This baby’s built to run over this stuff.”

Rick’s faith in the vehicle seemed to be well-founded. It was like an exaggerated version of a tank —no, tanks had caterpillar treads, and this had huge balloon tires, eight of them, with independent suspen­sion. More like a large version of an armored car. It was short and wide, with the rectangular crew housing perched in the center. Mounted forward of the hous­ing was a pair of large pincer-arms as well as a small forest of lesser tool arms. The arms could be con­trolled from the driver’s seat with amazing dexterity and strength. The area to the rear of the housing was taken up by a small airlock that gave the operators access to the outside, should the work require the hu­man touch. It was an impressive machine, but it was still a machine.

“Are you sure the main computer can’t take con­trol of this thing?” Hosato asked nervously.

“Impossible,” Rick assured him.

“If you don’t mind my being blunt, that’s what everyone said about the idea of killer robots. Impossi­ble, but it happened anyway.”

Rick sighed. “Look, are you worried about Suzi running amok?”

“No, but—”

“Well, there’s more chance of her being dominated by the computer than there is of this crawler being affected.”

Hosato shot a glance through the low door to the crew area, where James and Suzi were hovering over Sasha.

“Now, I didn’t mean you should get paranoid about Suzi,” Rick chided. “Look, Suzi’s capable of inde­pendent action, but she has no capacity for computer direction. And this crawler has no capacity for com­puter direction, and it isn’t capable of independent action. The only controls for this baby are right here in my hand, so don’t worry.”

Hosato hesitated a moment, but decided the em­barrassment of admitting his ignorance was worth the information to be gained. “How does that differ from what happened back at the complex?” he asked.

“The security robots are like most of the robots we use: run by one central computer. They are free-moving, multifunction robots, but the decision-making and function cues were still left in the central com­puter.”

He stopped talking to concentrate on piloting the vehicle around a rock formation.

“So all the killer robots were being controlled from the central computer?” Hosato prompted, once the obstacle had been cleared.

“That’s right,” Rick confirmed. “Their activities were too complex and unified to be self-directed. The problem isn’t with the individuals units, it’s with the central computer.”

Hosato swore.

“What’s wrong?” his friend asked. “I had a chance to go after the central computer and passed it up. If I could have gotten to it—”

“—you wouldn’t be here,” Rick interrupted. “Sasha could probably tell you more about it than I can, but believe me, that thing’s protected. You don’t just walk up and turn it off. Incidentally, how is she doing back there, anyway?”

“I’ll check,” said Hosato, and ducked back to the crew area.

Sasha was lying on the floor, her eyes open. Her listless thrashing about constantly threatened to dis­place the blankets they had heaped on her.

“How is she doing?” Hosato asked.

James turned worried eyes up to him. “We’re trying to keep her covered, but she keeps—”

“They’ll burn through!” Sasha moaned suddenly, sitting up. “We need a bigger block. Collapse another twenty feet—”

“It’s all right, Sasha,” Hosato soothed, taking her by her shoulders and easing her back down.

“You don’t understand.” She turned vacant eyes to him. “They’ll burn through. We’ve got to stop them.”

“They’re stopped,” he assured her. “Everything’s all right. Get some rest, now.”

“Hosato?” She blinked at him. “Could you get a doctor. I think my right hand’s hurt. The fingers feel like they’re on fire.”

She tried to raise her right arm to look at it, but Hosato restrained her.

“Just get some rest. Everything will be all right.”

“Hayama. Come up here, quick!”

Hosato was momentarily torn by indecision.

“Take care of her, James,” he said finally, relin­quishing his hold to the boy and starting forward.

“We’ve got problems,” Rick announced grimly as Hosato entered the pilot’s booth. “Watch the rear viewscreen there as we hit the top of this next rise.”

Hosato did as he was told. The moon was bright enough to throw shadows as he surveyed the scene in the viewscreen. At first he saw nothing; then some­thing moved in the center of the screen. A blob de­tached itself from a patch of shadows, then was obscured from sight as their crawler plunged into the next gully.

“What is it?” he asked tensely.

“The central computer’s sent one of the ore scouts after us.”

“What can it do?”

“Well, it’s got an industrial slicer as one of its tools, and an ore crane for another. It can pick us up or cut us apart, depending on its instructions. From what happened back at the complex, my guess is it’ll cut us apart.”

“Hosato!” James called from the back. “Can you give me a hand here?”

“In a minute, James,” Hosato called back.

“Say, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Rick said. “Is it Hayama or Hosato. The kid there keeps—”

“It’s Hosato. Can that thing catch us?”

“It’s faster than we are, but we’re almost out of range of the computer’s control radius.”

“Good.” Hosato sighed.

“Not so fast,” Rick retorted. “I said 'almost.' We’ve got another half-hour’s driving before we’re clear. It’ll be close, but it’ll probably catch us. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll be close enough to use its slicer on us.”

Hosato studied the pursuing vehicle as it came into view again.

“Where are the surface suits?” he asked finally.

“In the tall lockers back in the crew area. Why?”

But Hosato was already gone.

“Hosato—” the boy began, looking up.

“Not now, James,” Hosato mumbled, brushing past him. “We’ve got problems.”

“If I might suggest.” Suzi began, but Hosato ignored the robot.

“If anything happens, James,” he said, dragging the bulky surface suit from the locker and gathering it in his arms, “get in touch with the Hungarian. Suzi can tell you how to find him.”

“But—”

Hosato cut him short, calling ahead to Rick as he started for the cockpit again.

“Stop the crawler in the next gully!”

“What for?” the mechanic called back.

“We haven’t got time to argue,” Hosato growled, joining him in the cockpit. “Just stop this thing and help me get into this suit.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take a blaster and lay a little ambush for our friend there.”

“You’re nuts,” Rick proclaimed. “You won’t stand a chance out there.”

“If I don’t, none of us have a chance. At least I can create a diversion until the rest of you are out of range. Now, stop this thing.”

The mechanic obediently pulled the vehicle to a halt in the dark shadows of a gully.

“All right,” he said, swiveling in his chair to help Hosato with the suit, “but how will we know to come back and pick you up?”

“You don’t,” Hosato replied, struggling with the suit’s fastenings. “You get out of range and wait. If this works, I’ll follow your tracks and catch up with you. If I’m not there by sunrise, I’m not coming.”

“Well, good luck, Hosato.” Rick slapped him on the back as he headed back to the crew area.

Just through the doorway, he stopped suddenly. His swords, his clothes, were all heaped in the center of the floor next to James. It took him a moment to real­ize the implications of this fact; then he cast about the area, opening his faceplate.

“Where’s Suzi?” he demanded.

“She she told me to unload her,” James stam­mered.

“But where is she?” Hosato barked.

As if in response, he heard a muffled hiss of com­pressed air. The outer airlock door had just opened.

Hosato stoqped and rummaged desperately through his gear.

“I didn’t know what she was going to do!” the boy insisted. “All of a sudden she was gone.”

Hosato finally found what he was looking for. The radio unit he and Suzi sometimes used for communi­cations. Thumbing the unit on, he raised it quickly to his lips.

“Suzi!” he called. “What are you doing?”

“What’s going on?” Rick called from the cockpit Hosato pushed his way forward again, centering his attention on the rear viewscreen.

“See for yourself!” he said, nodding at the screen.

Suzi could be seen clearly, steadfastly making her way back along the crawler’s tracks.

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Rich said archly, “that’s a waste of a fine robot. She can’t do anything against that ore scout.”

“I didn’t send her,” Hosato snarled. “She’s out there on her own.”

The robot was almost out of sight as Hosato thumbed the radio button again.

“Suzi. I asked you a direct question. Respond!”

“I am executing your plan for diversionary action,” came the calm reply.

“The plan was for me to create a diversion,” Hosato barked.

“That was the only flaw in your plan. I am emi­nently better suited than you for this mission.”

“Return to the crawler at once!”

“May I remind you"—. Suzi’s voice was dry, despite the radio—"the purpose of this maneuver is to gain time for the crawler to escape. That effect will very quickly be lost if you continue to delay your depar­ture. The time for argument is past.”

“She’s right,” Rick said, and set the crawler in mo­tion again.

Hosato started to stop him, then hesitated. Suzi was right—at least on the time element. Then again, if she failed, he could still try his own gambit.

“For the record,” he said into the radio, “I disagree with your assertion that you can deal with the ore scout better than I could.”

“Normally you would be correct,” Suzi retorted, “but under surface conditions my mobility and ma­neuverability exceed your own.”

“But your programming won’t allow you to carry out any aggressive functions. How do you expect to stop it?”

“Even though I cannot pose an actual threat, if the ore scout perceives me as a threat, it’ll stop.”

“And then it will start again and you’ll be dead.”

“Actually, the correct phrase is 'nonfunctional.'”

Hosato was involuntarily startled by the correction. He realized suddenly that he had grown to think of Suzi not as a robot but as a living individual.

“Suzi—” he began slowly.

“Future communications will occur only as time permits,” the robot’s voice interrupted. “The ore scout is in sight now.”

Hosato waited impatiently for the crawler to top another rise, thereby giving him a view of the action occurring to their rear. But as the scene rose into the viewscreen, he could see nothing. Then, as they were about to plunge into the next gully, there was a quick flash of light.

The ore scout had fired its slicer. Apparently the two robots were somewhere in one of the gullies, hid­den from the crawler’s line of sight.

As their vehicle reached the bottom of the gully, the front viewscreen picked up a second flash of light re­flected on the ridge ahead. The slicer had been fired a second time.

“Suzi!” Hosato called into the radio. “Are you all right?”

“It missed,” replied the robot.

“How are you drawing its fire?”

“Just a minute.”

There was another flash of light.

Hosato waited. There was no sound from the radio.

“Suzi?”

Silence.

“Suzi?” he repeated.

“In response to your question,” came Suzi’s voice, “I am playing upon the machine’s target-image sensi­tivities.”

Relief flooded over Hosato, but he kept it out of his voice. “Conld I have that last bit in English?” he asked.

“From the actions displayed by the security robots at the complex, it is apparent they are being directed by the central computer to seek out and destroy ob­jects of a humanoid form. That means the target unage must display cerain properties, of shape—spe­cifically, a head, a given body shape Excuse me a moment.”

There was another flash of light.

“Suzi. What are you doing?” Hosato barked.

“That is what I am attempting to explain,” came the calm response. “Additional questions will only prolong my efforts.”

Hosato ground his teeth. He had dealt with Suzi’s explanations before. They were usually drawn out and detailed, but it was useless to try to rush her.

“Sorry, Suzi.” He sighed. “But could you try to keep it to the major points only?”

“I never indulge in needless... Excuse me.”

There was another flash of light.

“Whatever she’s doing, it’s keeping that thing pinned down,” Rick commented.

Hosato nodded absently, waiting for Suzi to con­tinue her oration.

“As I was saying,” Suzi’s voice came again, “fortu­nately I have been provided with just such a shape— or half of one, to be specific. It seems to be sufficient to convince the ore scout’s scanners that I am a tar­get.”

For a moment Hosato was confused, but then he remembered. The fencing manikin. By facing the fencing manikin with its single arm toward the ore scout, she was making it believe she was a human!

“We’ll be out of range soon,” Rick announced.

Hosato ignored him. The information was welcome, but at the moment his attention was commanded by Suzi’s report.

“By presenting the humanoid shape,” Suzi was say­ing, “I am able to draw the ore scout’s attention and activate its attack pattern. Then, by removing the image, I am able to effectively disappear as a target. Apparently the scout is directed to search for the target for a given period of time before resuming its pursuit of the sand crawler. The periodic interruptions in my transmission occur when the scout starts to abandon its search, thereby making it necessary to display the target once more. Excuse me.”

It occurred to Hosato that Suzi was flirting with dis­aster. The slicer would destroy her completely if it touched her even once. If she were slow in turning, or...

“Suzi!” he said desperately. “Do you know if the central computer has a learning capacity. If it does, a repeated pattern could be detected and the target image changed.”

“That’s right!” Rick supplied. “The computer does have that capacity.”

“Even if that capacity exists,” Suzi’s reply came,

“in my opinion it has not received sufficient data to effect such a change.”

A warning bell went off in Hosato’s mind. Some­thing that had been drilled into his head time and time again during his training.

“Suzi!” he warned. “Never underestimate your op­ponent. Don’t make plans that hinge on his incompe­tence or inability to react.”

There was no response.

“Suzi?” he repeated.

“We’re out of range now,” Rick said over his shoul­der.

“Suzi. Status check!”

Silence.

“Shall I stop and wait for the robot?” Rick asked.

Hosato didn’t reply.

“I said, shall I—”

“No,” said Hosato, his hand holding the silent radio dropping listlessly to his side. “There’s no use waiting. Push on for Ravensteel.”

“We’ve got to stop them!”

Sasha’s delirious meanings from the crew area ech­oed Hosato’s own thoughts.

 

 

“That’s an interesting story, Hosato.”

The Ravensteel security chief’s tone matched his indolent sprawl in the office chair.

Hosato’s alarm and annoyance with the situation grew. Something was wrong. He had realized that when their arrival at Ravensteel was met by armed guards, guards who had not lowered their weapons when Hosato announced who he was and his affiliation with Ravensteel.

“That’s my report,” he corrected. “If you’ll get in touch with one of the executives in charge of this mis­sion, I’ll be glad to repeat it for him.”

“I’ve already contacted those parties.” The man smiled. “They’ve delegated full authority in this mat­ter to me.”

Hosato was suddenly aware again of the armed guard standing behind his chair. “Very well, then,” he said with forced casualness. “What else do you want to know?”

The man, Gedge, leaned forward and rested his el­bows on his desk. “You could start by explaining what it is you want from Ravensteel.”

Hosato was stunned by the statement. “I... I don’t understand,” he managed at last.

“Oh, come now, Hosato.” Gedge winked know­ingly. “What are you after, really. More money?”

Hosato reminded himself again of the guard and held his temper in check.

“Actually,” he said levelly, “I had the ridiculous idea Ravensteel might be interested in helping. It would be in their best interest, you know.”

Gedge’s gaze never wavered, and neither did his smile.

“Ravensteel is interested only in pleasing its cus­tomers and its stockholders,” he recited.

“All of whom are human,” Hosato supplied'.'. Per­haps I didn’t make myself clear. The robots are kill­ing all humans—women, children, everybody. I don’t see any reason why Ravensteel would be exempted, unless...”

A thought suddenly occurred to him. This man was far too unruffled and sure of himself.

“unless Ravensteel is controlling them,” he fin­ished thoughtfully.

Gedge dropped his eyes and chuckled to himself.

“Hosato,” he said, reestablishing eye contact, “you’re really quite amusing. Now, tell me, what are we supposed to be controlling them to do?”

Hosato’s anger flashed'. Tve been telling you!” he snarled. “To—”

“—run amok and kill people,” Gedge interrupted'. That’s right, I keep forgetting.”

His eyes hardened, and he half-rose from his desk as he glared at Hosato. “I keep forgetting because it isn’t true. Mc. Crae Enterprises is functioning today as normally as it was yesterday and the day before.”

“What?” Hosato exclaimed.

“That’s right, Hosato. We checked your story, ri­diculous as it was. Mc. Crae is taking orders, making shipments, and conducting tours just like they always have.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Gedge smiled. “At the very least, it makes a rather substantial contra­diction to your story.”

“Wait a minute,” Hosato began excitedly. “It’s the robots. It’s got to be. Has anyone human from Mc­. Crae been in contact with the outside world since yesterday?”

“As a matter of fact, we tried. Would you like to see the tapes?”

Gedge keyed a reference number into his desk-robot and swiveled the viewscreen so Hosato could watch. The very human features of a uniformed Mc-. Crae security guard blinked into view.

“Security,” the face said briskly.

“Gedge from Ravensteel here,” came Gedge’s voice. “Let me talk with Sasha.”

“She is unavailable,” the guard responded. “May I be of assistance?”

“Perhaps,” Gedge’s voice continued smoothly. “One of our ore scouts malfunctioned and got away from us. The last time we saw it, it was headed your way. We’d like permission to cross over onto your property and reclaim it.”

“Under no circumstances are Ravensteel personnel allowed on Mc. Crae property,” the guard recited. “We will conduct a search of our own and notify you of the results.”

“I want to talk to Sasha,” Gedge insisted stub­bornly. “She’d let us—”

“She is on a priority mission at this time,” the guard interrupted. “Until her return, I am in temporary command. Mc. Crae rules are very specific on the point of trespassers. We will conduct our own search, and if any Ravensteel personnel are found on Mc. Crae property, they will be fired on as saboteurs.”

The screen blinked out as the guard broke the con­nection.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Hosato insisted. “You know as well as I do, transmissions and dis­plays can be phonied electronically. Hell, Suzi could do that!”

“Who. Oh, yes, your robot. Well, I don’t know much about that. Your people were always better than us at radios and transistors and stuff like that.”

The casual dismissal in his voice gave more impact to the racial slur than would have been gained with sarcasm.

“But what it comes down to, Hosato, is, I don’t be­lieve your cock-and-bull story. More importantly, nei­ther does the executive board. We think you sold out to Mc. Crae.”

A tiny spark of fear replaced Hosato’s anger. He began to wonder if he would be alive at the end of his meeting.

“How am I supposed to have sold out?” he asked quietly.

“You’re good, Hosato. I’ll admit that. A specialist.” Gedge waved a casual hand at Hosato’s gear and weapons arrayed on his desk. “Did you know that any one of a dozen on my team would have tried your mission. For no extra pay. No, you probably wouldn’t. You’re the outside specialist they went to instead.”