The Mad Scientist Read online

don’t have quite as much time for beta-testing these days. I’m afraid the new demand has required most of our latest models. And now we’ve been scrambling, trying to fix all the problems we’ve created.”

  “What are the latest models?” Dwayne asked.

  “Let's just say that you shouldn't go drowning in the municipal swimming pool any time soon,” said the Mad Scientist.

  When Dwayne went home that day, he was nursing a splitting headache. Too much shocking information had been processed in one day. His bus ride back from work had been troublesome, now that he knew the driver of this three-ton contraption was not among the living.

  His sleep was equally restless, on account of the aforementioned afflictions. When he got up for work the next morning, he had quite a terrible neck pain, the kind he happened to know he got when he went to sleep while stressed.

  The wait for the bus was both fearful and interminable. In his delirium he had skipped his shower, his shave, and combing his hair, and had therefore reached the bus stop ten minutes early. His thoughts were occupied with frenzied paranoia about robots occupying every seemingly uninteresting aspect of his life. Machines running his credit card, washing his car, doing his laundry. How many of his friends had central processing cores where their brains should be? He simply could not get his mind off these troubling thoughts, and almost didn’t notice when the bus pulled up.

  He got on, and attempted to greet the bus driver with the same warmness he greeted everyone. But his eyebrows immediately furrowed, and hatred shined in his eyes. How dare this driver, who was not even a living, breathing creature, cause him so much grief? Who gave it the right to determine whether or not he got to work on time?

  But his willpower was successful, and he deposited the correct fare without protest. He sat on a seat near the back, and tried to to think positively. He tried to think of raindrops and buttercups, but negative thoughts kept creeping in: rain was usually packed with corrosive pollutants, and buttercups these days were made with harmful artificial preservatives. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts, he almost missed his stop, and pulled the cord when the bus was only twenty feet away from the sign.

  The bus driver did not even make an attempt to stop. He just kept going towards the next stop. Dwayne got up in agitation, and stormed to the front of the bus. “Why didn’t you stop?” he demanded.

  The driver did not take his eyes off the road. “You didn’t give me enough time to stop.”

  “Well, then stop a little after the sign!”

  “I can’t. The city only allows me to stop at the designated areas.”

  The bus ground to a halt at the next stop, more than half a mile from Dwaye’s workplace. “This is more than half a mile away,” he said. “I’m going to be late for work.”

  “You should have pulled the cord on time,” said the driver.

  Dwayne’s years of practiced, carefully administered kindness instantly dissolved, and behind this protective wall, lay an insatiable thirst to murder this man. Before he even knew it, his hands were around the bus driver’s head, and he was driving it into the steering wheel with all his might.

  Springs, cogs, wires, and wheels catapulted into the window of the bus. Dents and cracks were left deep in its surface. The driver’s mechanical body clattered to the floor, its great weight shaking the bus violently as it made contact.

  Another passenger got up in shock and horror. “I’ve always wanted to do that!” he exclaimed.

  Dwayne, satisfied, stared back at him, his face completely at peace. “Well, why didn’t you?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know he was a robot, man! How did you know?”

  “A Mad Scientist told me,” said Dwayne, and he got off the bus in surprisingly good spirits.

  He was late for work, but due to Dwayne’s previous record of thorough politeness, nobody seemed to mind.

  That very same day, there was another driver in the place of the last one. He looked younger, his hair thicker and shinier. It seemed the city wanted to give Dwayne the benefit of the doubt. People don’t bash open civil servants; it’s an inconceivable practice.

  Not even days later, Dwayne discovered this new driver was not any different from the last one. He was still upholding the rules of the road, in spite of the customers, not because of them. When Dwayne went to work the next day, he carried a baseball bat and left his mark.

  Now whatever powers that guided the day-to-day life of civilization decided to take notice. The new driver had company this time, in the form of a menacing, shifty eyed bodyguard. The bus leaned awkwardly on whatever side the bodyguard decided to sit. He did not say a word. He regarded Dwayne with the same distrusting menace he regarded everyone else.

  Dwayne knew right from the start that the bodyguard was also a robot. When he did, he took to packing a sledgehammer. It was easy to hide. It provided plenty of damage. And it could take out multiple enemies in a short span of time if wielded deftly enough.

  He didn’t always act on his impulses immediately. He thought he’d give each cybernetic monstrosity a chance, a grace period, an opportunity to learn. But they would not. The newer firmware mixed with the ancient hardware simply could not learn from new experiences, and Dwayne had to take matters into his own hands.

  After the third or fourth time Dwayne smashed his driver, one of the passengers recognized him from before. “Why do you keep doing that?” he asked Dwayne.

  “Why aren’t you?” came the reply. “Why do you put up with this?”

  “I don't got no choice, man,” said the fellow passenger. “Shit, I gotta get to work. And I ain’t gonna keep my job if you keep killin’ all the drivers!”

  “They’re not alive,” said Dwayne. “You can’t kill something that never had a pulse.”

  “Man, if you hate the bus so much, why don’t you get a car?”

  Dwayne left the battered ruins of the bus driver and his two mechanical bodyguards behind thoughtfully. He didn’t have enough money for a car in his savings account. But a motorcycle might be an adequate alternative. Besides, with this new recklessness of his, there was no telling what new parts of his personality he might discover.

  The line at the DMV was long. Dwayne took a number at the door and sat down patiently, reading a book. He looked at his watch from time to time, as number upon number was called before his. After reading two chapters of his novel, it was finally his turn to see the clerk at the counter.

  He hadn’t even gotten there when he realized that she, too, was not among the living. She was built to resemble a happy, doting little grandmother with sagging skin, a haircut more than forty years out of style, and thick, square glasses. But the firmware would have none of it. Not a single laugh line was present; it was clear this woman had not even considered smiling in all her un-life. Her neck was hunched, and her eyes were lowered. She did not even look up when Dwayne approached. “Your social security card,” she grumbled as she reached out her hand.

  Dwayne held his breath and counted to ten. This would be an easy process. He would not have to interact with her beyond today. But just in case the fuse blew, he fingered the sledgehammer concealed in the leather jacket he had bought to wear for riding on his motorcycle.

  “What are you here for today?” asked the un-granny.

  “I need to get a license for my motorcycle,” said Dwayne. Beads of sweat were running down his forehead as he tried to resist the urge to destroy.

  The granny typed a few lines on her computer. She wasn’t even making eye contact. “How impolite!” Dwayne thought. His anger was building with every second... how dare this machinery determine his fate! What gives her the right? Why should he have to listen to her? He found himself gripping the wrapped handle of his weapon tightly, and his elbow nearly jerked it from his coat pocket―

  “Fill this out, and meet a certified DMV instructor out back for a test on a closed course,” the old 'lady' interrupted.

  Dwayne immediately felt relieved. His hammer rested harmlessly
in his pocket as he took the clipboard from her outstretched hand and gave a grateful smile, which was not returned. She would be spared his wrath, and he would get his license. He wondered if she knew how lucky she was.

  The instructor was already outside when Dwayne got there. Wordlessly, he took the clipboard from Dwayne and gestured towards an old-fashioned motorcycle that was resting at the end of a large paved track. It was rusty and dirty, one of the older designs, which came with a pair of saddlebags large enough to carry a week of groceries. It looked to be about as good at cornering as a beached whale might be at leap-frog.

  “Drive the motorcycle around the course on or about seven miles per hour,” droned the instructor.

  Dwayne lowered his head and got on the motorcycle. He had his suspicions about this one, too, but he also had a license to earn. He started the vehicle and began the closed course, watching his speedometer.

  He hadn’t even made it twenty feet when the track made a sharp turn. He slowed down and held out his leg to help pivot the bike around the curve, but it was not enough. The rusty, ancient equipment went off the track and over the brown grass.

  Dwayne got the vehicle back on course and went around the rest of the track, hoping that the instructor didn't notice. “How’d I do?” he asked when he returned.

  “You went off course,” said the instructor, “You did not pass. Try again tomorrow.”

  “But that