Chapter 11 Chapter Eleven Escape to the Road Belt

Bailey suddenly clenched his hand tightly. "Are you sure?" He blurted out, but then thought it was useless to ask.You don't ask a computer if it's sure it's saying the right answer, even if it has arms and legs. Sure enough, R. Daniel replied: "Very sure." "Are those people close to us?" "Not too close. They're spread out." "Okay." Bailey continued to eat, mechanically moving the fork in his hand.Behind that long, sad face, his mind was busy. Let's say last night's shoe store incident wasn't as innocent as it seems, assuming it didn't happen naturally but was instigated by a group of anti-robot extremists.And among this group of agitators, it is likely to include people who have a strong sense of resistance and have done research on robots.Assuming this, then R. Daniel is likely to have been recognized.

(Juriel hinted at that too. Damn it! The guy was prescient.) It was a reasonable inference.Even if they couldn't take organized action on the spot last night, they could still make plans for the next step.If they could recognize a robot like R. Daniel, then of course they would also recognize Bailey as a cop.A policeman with an anthropomorphic robot is definitely not an ordinary policeman, but probably a criminal policeman with a special status. (Bailey, with the benefit of hindsight, has no trouble pushing down this route.) And so on, and it doesn't take long for a government watcher (perhaps a city official) to spot their whereabouts.It was no surprise that they were targeted within twenty-four hours.If Bailey hadn't been in the space city and the driveway for a long time that day, they might have been targeted earlier.

R. Daniel finished eating.He waited quietly, a pair of perfect hands gently resting on the table. "Is there something we should do?" he asked. "It's safe in the restaurant," Bailey said. "Now, leave this to me, please." Bailey looked around attentively, as if he had never seen a restaurant before. people!Thousands of people.What is the capacity of a typical restaurant?Bailey thought, he had seen the statistics, 2,200 people.And this restaurant is bigger than the average restaurant. If at this moment someone yelled "Robot!" occur. Naturally occurring riots can erupt anywhere, as easily in a restaurant as in a city hallway or in an elevator.Maybe even easier.When eating, everyone's behavior is not restrained, and some people's unintentional jokes will often be exacerbated by a small matter, causing serious consequences.

But a pre-planned riot is different.If there were a riot in this restaurant, the masterminds themselves would be trapped in the chaotic Great Room.Once the scene of flying cups and plates and throwing tables and chairs appears, it will be difficult to get out.At that time, among the hundreds of dead and injured, they may include themselves. No, not in the restaurant.To design a safe riot, the riot must take place on a city boulevard, or in some very narrow passages.Due to the limitation of the terrain, the scene of panic and yelling will spread slowly, and then the mastermind can quickly move to the upper floor along the side exit or the unnoticed ascending and descending level road belt, and escape.

Bailey felt trapped.There may be others out there waiting.They would track Bailey and R. Daniel to a suitable location, and then light the fuse of the riot. "Why don't they arrest them?" R. Daniel interrupted his thoughts. "It's just going to make trouble sooner," he said. "You know their faces, don't you, and you don't forget?" "I can't forget." "Okay, then we'll catch them next time. For now, we're going to break through their encirclement. Follow me. Do whatever I do." Bailey stood up and carefully turned the plate over, placing it upside down in the center of the movable dish lid rising from below.

Then he put the fork in the groove. R. Daniel followed his example.Plates and cutlery dropped and disappeared. "They got up too," said R. Daniel. "Good. I don't think they'll get too close to us. Not here." The two of them walked to the line and lined up to move to the source.There is still the sound of "clack clack la" meal card.Every time the meal card clicks, it records the consumption of a ration unit. Bailey turned his head to look at the curling steam and the noisy crowd, suddenly and clearly recalled the scene when he took Bentleley to visit the Lizhou Zoo six or seven years ago.Oh, no, that was eight years ago, when Bentley had just celebrated his eighth birthday. (My God! How time flies.) It was Ben's first visit to the zoo, and he couldn't be more excited.Before that, he had never seen a cat or a dog.

And, is there a bird park there?Even Bailey, who has been to the zoo more than a dozen times, cannot resist the charm of the bird park. Nothing compares to the shock you experience when you first see a living thing darting through the air.When they went, it was feeding time in the sparrow cage, and the caretaker poured oatmeal into a long trough (humans are used to yeast substitutes, but conservative animals insist on eating real grains). Immediately, groups of sparrows flew down, about hundreds of them.Wing-to-wing, chirping harshly, they stood in a row on top of the wooden trough... Yes, that was what Baley had in mind when he looked back as he left the dining room.Sparrows on a wooden trough.The thought disgusted him.

He thought: God!There must be a better way, right? But what is a better way?What's wrong with this method?It had never bothered him before, after all. Suddenly he said to R. Daniel, "Are you ready, Daniel?" "I'm ready, Ilya." They left the restaurant. As for how to get out of trouble, it all depended on Bailey's ability. There is a game played by children called "Road Belt", and the rules of the game are similar in different cities.A boy from San Francisco would have no difficulty participating in such games in Cairo. Its way is to get from point A to point B via the subway system in the city, and the person who acts as a "first mover" should get rid of the people who are chasing him as much as possible on the way.If a starter can reach the finish line alone in the end, then his ability and skill are considered to be high; and the person who acts as a tracker can only be regarded as a great skill if he is not shaken off by the starter.

This kind of game is usually played in the evening after get off work, when there are more and more people on the road belt, and the game is more thrilling and complex to play.The starters set off, running up and down the acceleration strip.He made his movements as unpredictable as he could, standing for a long time on a certain strip, and then suddenly jumping in a random direction.He would quickly run through several road strips, and then stand on a certain road strip and wait.If the follower behind accidentally rushed over one more road belt, he would be pitiful.Unless he is quick, he may be ahead or behind the trail before he notices the error.A smart first mover will know how to take advantage of this opportunity and quickly turn in the appropriate direction.

To complicate the pursuit, the starters would hop onto a flat or high-speed strip, then hop off the other side.If it is a foul not to touch a flat-speed or high-speed strip from the beginning to the end, it is also a foul to stand still on it. It is really difficult for salty people to understand the appeal of this kind of game, especially those who have never raced a road belt as a child.Often, adults who are heading home from work get hit by kids on the road, so they are rough with the kids.The police will catch them and their parents will punish them.They get scolded at school and in the sub-etheric screening room.Every year, four or five teenagers die, dozens are injured, and innocent bystanders are affected by the road belt.

But no matter what, there is no way to extinguish these races on the road.The more dangerous the game, the more valuable the rewards of the Road Belt are, respected and admired by your peers.A successful drag leader can walk the road with great vigor: a famous starter is the "little bully" who takes the lead. This feeling Bailey understands.Even though it has been many years, he still feels very satisfied when he thinks back to the scenery he brought along the road.Back then, he once led 20 people from the central square area all the way to the edge of Queens, crossing three high and far road belts on the way.During two desperate and tireless hours, he got rid of some of the most agile pursuers in the Bronx, and finally reached the finish line alone.Everyone has been extolling the deeds of this soaring road for several months. Of course, Bailey is now in his early forties and hasn't been on the road for more than two decades.But he still remembers some tricks of the road belt.Even though he's not as mobile anymore, on the other hand he has an edge that he didn't have in the past.He is a cop.He knew the city, he knew where every metal alley began and ended, as only a policeman as experienced as he could possibly know. Bailey left the restaurant in a dazed, but not in a hurry.He was always ready for the cry of "Robot! Robot!" from behind.He counted his steps, and finally he felt the acceleration strip move under his feet. He paused, and R. Daniel followed. "Are those people still behind us, Daniel?" Bailey asked in a low voice. "Yes. They're moving closer." "This situation will not last." Bailey said confidently.He looked at the road belt extending to the left and right, and the crowd moved towards his left along the road belt, getting faster and further away; in his life, he had to step on this road belt several times almost every day , but there have been more than 7,000 days without running on it.In an instant, the familiar thrill of the old days returned.His breathing became rapid. He had long forgotten that he had caught Bentley's road belt once.That time he nagged and scolded him for a long time, and threatened him to hand him over to the police for protection. The speed of the acceleration strip has exceeded twice the safe speed, and Bailey stepped on it briskly.Against the force of the acceleration, he leaned forward to maintain his balance.The flat-speed road belt whizzed past him.For a moment he looked as if he was about to climb up, but suddenly he was turning and backing up, backing up, dodging left and right to dodge the crowds on the slow lane. He stopped and let the road belt move him at a slow speed of twenty-five kilometers per hour. "How many more are following us, Daniel?" "There's only one left, Ilya." The robot was beside him, unhurried, neither blushing nor panting. "This guy must have been a master back then, but he won't last long." Bailey is full of confidence, and the excitement of his youth seems to have regained half of it.It contained a subtle sense of thrill, a purely physical feeling of the wind in hair and face, and a sense of mystery, as if intoxicated by some mysterious ritual that outsiders could not participate in. "They call it a side flash," he whispered to R. Daniel. He took a long stride along the same road, easily avoiding the rushing crowd.He continued to run fast, slowly approaching the edge of the road belt.Since the speed remained constant, his head was moving up and down steadily among the crowd, and it looked as if he was still moving in a straight line from behind, and it was not obvious that he had moved obliquely closer to the edge. Then, his footsteps did not stop, but he moved five centimeters to the side, and stepped onto another road belt next to him. As he tried to keep his balance, he felt pain in his thigh muscles. He sprinted through the crowd returning from get off work and onto another seventy-kilometer-per-hour road belt. "How about now, Daniel?" he asked. "He still follows us." R. Daniel replied calmly. Belle pursed her lips.Now only use the highway belt.It really requires coordination skills, and maybe his current coordination skills are not enough to handle it. He takes a quick look around.Where exactly are they? B 22nd Street passes by.He made a quick estimate and acted immediately.He ran and leaped quickly, changing the road belt continuously, and the speed of the road belt changed faster and faster, and finally he suddenly changed to the moving platform of the flat speed road belt. Just as Bailey and R. Daniel climbed onto the platform and squeezed through the railings, the indifferent faces of men and women suddenly showed angry expressions because they were tired of walking. "Hey, what's going on!" screamed a woman grabbing her hat. "I'm sorry," Bailey said out of breath. He pushed his way through the standing crowd, twisted and jumped the other side.At the last moment of his jump, a passenger whom he had bumped into punched him in the back angrily.He swayed and rushed forward. He tried desperately to keep his feet.But he slanted his body and staggered across the dividing line of a road belt.The sudden change in speed sent him to his knees and he fell. In an instant, he seemed to see many people colliding with him and rolling past him, causing chaos on the road.This is the terrible "blocking people" accident, and many people will be sent to the hospital with broken hands and legs... However, the disaster did not happen, and R. Daniel's hand reached behind him in time.He felt himself being pulled up by a force beyond human power. "Thank you." He opened his mouth wide and inhaled, not having time to say anything more. He ran and jumped onto the speed bump.In a complicated way, he let his feet land on the V-shaped connecting road belt of a highway belt when crossing.With the same pace, he accelerated again, jumped onto a highway strip, and jumped off the other side. "Is he still with us, Daniel?" "Not a single one in sight, Ilya." "Okay. You're such a good road belter, Daniel, oh, quick! Quick!" He spun and jumped onto another flat road belt, then jumped off with a clatter, and ran towards a gate that was obviously a public institution .The guard came over. Bailey flashed his ID. "Perform official duties." They go inside. "The power plant," said Bailey curtly, "and thus completely interrupt our movements." Not only this time, he has been in a power plant before.While the power plant is no stranger to him, the sense of wonder is still there.This feeling was intensified, especially considering that his father had held important positions in similar power plants.Back then, before that happened... the huge generator hidden in the central parapet was buzzing, and the sound echoed around.There was a faint pungent smell of ozone in the air.The warning red line in front of the restricted area carries a serious and silent threat, prohibiting anyone without protective clothing from crossing. Somewhere in the power plant (Bailey didn't know where) four hundred and fifty grams of fission price was consumed every day.The so-called "hot ash" radioactive fragmentation products are sent to the ocean 16 kilometers away by air pressure through lead pipes, and buried in caves at a depth of 900 meters below the sea surface.Sometimes, Bailey wondered what would happen when the caves were filled with "hot ash." "Stay away from those red lines!" He warned R. Daniel suddenly and fiercely.Then he immediately realized that his attitude was inappropriate, and added embarrassingly: "I don't think you care about that." "A question about radiation?" asked R. Daniel. "right." "That would hurt me. Gamma rays disrupt the delicate balance of the positronic brain. It works on me faster than it does on you." "You mean it's going to kill you?" "So to speak. I'm going to need a new positronic brain. Since no two positronic brains are exactly alike, I'm going to be a new individual. If so, then this one who's talking to you right now Daniel, it can be said that he is dead." Bailey looked at him a little puzzled. "I never knew it was here. Let's go up this slope." "We just don't emphasize it. Space City wants people on Earth to trust the usefulness of a robot like me, not notice my weaknesses." "Then why did you tell Zhao?" R. Daniel looked directly at his human partner. "You are my work partner, Ilya, you should know my weaknesses and shortcomings." Bailey cleared his throat, but he had nothing to say. "Go in this direction," he said shortly afterwards, "it's three hundred meters from our apartment." It was a gloomy, low-class apartment building.The room is small, with two beds, two folding chairs, a wardrobe, and a fixed TV screen that cannot be adjusted freely, and programs are only broadcast at certain times.There were no toilet facilities, not even a wash-basin with restricted operation.There is no cooking utensils, not even equipment for boiling water.There was a tiny garbage disposal pipe in the corner of the room which looked gross and ugly and disgusting. Bailey shrugged. "That's it. I think we can live with it." R. Daniel walks to the garbage disposal.He reached out and touched it lightly, and the seams of the shirt came loose, revealing a smooth, muscular-looking chest. "What are you doing?" Bailey asked. "Take out the food I put in it. If I leave it alone, it will rot. I will become a disgusting thing." R. Daniel stretched out two fingers, placed them carefully under the nipple, and pressed down with pressure in a very precise manner.His chest was opened from top to bottom. R. Daniel stretched his hand inside and pulled out a thin translucent pouch from a pile of shiny metal.The pouch looks a bit bulging.He opened the pouch, and Bailey looked at him with some trepidation. R. Daniel hesitated. "The food is perfectly clean. I don't chew and I don't salivate. You know, the food is suctioned through the esophagus. It's still edible." "I see," said Bailey gently. Hungry. You get rid of it!" Bailey thought that the food sac in R. Daniel's body was probably made of fluorocarbon plastic.At least the food didn't get on the pouch. R. Daniel poured it out smoothly and put it into the tube bit by bit. Bailey thought it was a waste of food.He sat on the bed and took off his shirt. "I suggest going out early tomorrow morning," he said. "Is there any particular reason?" "Our friends don't know where this apartment is yet. At least, I hope they don't. It's safer if I leave sooner. We'll decide if we can still work together when we're in council." "You think it might be impossible?" Bailey shrugged, his long face slumped. "We can't go through this every day." "But I think—" R. Daniel was interrupted by the sudden flashing of a warning light. The row warning lights glow deep red. Bailey stood up quietly and picked up the blaster.The light on the door came on again. He walked carefully to the door, put his thumb on the contactor of the blaster, and turned the knob at the same time, opening the one-way viewing hole in the door.This viewing hole was not very good, it was small, but it was still possible to tell that standing outside the door was Baley's son Bentleley. Bailey was quick.He flung the door open, grabbed the child's half-raised hand ready to signal again, and dragged him into the room. Bentley fell in the direction he was being dragged and stumbled against the wall.He was short of breath, and the fear and confusion in his eyes gradually disappeared.He rubs his wrists. "Dad!" he said displeasedly, "Why did you grab me like that!" Baley stood by the closed door and looked out the visitation hole.The corridor was empty. "Ben, did you see anyone just now?" "No wow! Come on, Dad! I'm just here to see if you're alright?" "Why am I bad?" "I don't know either. Mama told me to come. She was crying and worried like hell. She said I must find you, and if I didn't come, she said she would come herself, and she didn't know What's the matter. She must want me, Dad!" "How did you find me? Does your mother know I'm here?" "No, she doesn't know. I'll speak to someone in your office." "And they told you?" Bentleley looked surprised by his father's violent reaction.He whispered, "Yes. Shouldn't they have told me?" Bailey and R. Daniel looked at each other. Bailey stood up heavily. "Ben, where is your mother now? Is it in our apartment?" "No, we're going to Granny's for dinner and then we'll stay there. I should go back over there now. I mean, as long as you're okay, I should go back over there, Dad." "No, you stay here. Daniel, have you noticed where the communication equipment is on this floor?" "I know," R. Daniel said. "You're leaving the room to use it?" "I have to. I have to check with Jessie." "May I suggest that it is more reasonable for Bentley to do this? This action is dangerous, and his value is relatively low." "What?" Bailey's eyes widened. But then he thought: God!What am I mad about? He calmed down, and continued in a more conciliatory tone: "You don't understand, Daniel. It is not our custom to send his own son to possible danger, even if it were more reasonable. Do." "Dangerous?" Ben exclaimed in surprise and delight. "What's going on, Dad?" "It's all right, Ben. It's none of your business. Got it? Get ready for bed. When I get back, I'm going to see you in bed. Do you hear me?" "Oh, Dad, tell me, I won't say anything." "Go to bed!" "Okay." Bailey stood by the communications equipment on that floor, his jacket unbuttoned so he could pull it out at any time.He put his personal number into the microphone, and then waited for a computer twenty-five kilometers away to check to see if the call was authorized.He only waited for a while, because he used the official telephone number of the plainclothes criminal police, and the number of calls was unlimited.He gave the number of his mother-in-law's apartment. "Mom," he whispered, "I'm looking for Jessie." Jessie was probably already waiting for him, and she would appear on the screen in no time.Bailey looked at her face, then deliberately dimmed the screen. "Jessie, I'm here with Ben. Now tell me, what's going on here?" he said, looking from side to side. "How are you? Are you all right?" "I'm fine, Jessie, you don't want to be like this." "Oh, Elijah, I'm so worried." "What are you worried about?" He was a little annoyed. "You know, your friend..." "What about him?" "I told you last night there was going to be trouble" "Stop thinking about it. I'm leaving Ben here tonight, and you go to sleep. Good-bye, dear!" He cut off the communication, took two breaths before walking back, because of fear and tension, his face was gray. When Bailey returned to the apartment, Ben was standing in the room.He had already put one contact lens into the small suction cup, and the other was still in his eye. "Oh, Dad!" said Ben, "doesn't this place even have water? Mr. Oliva says I can't go to the private room." "Yeah, you can't. Put that thing back in your eyes, Ben, and you'll sleep in them all night, it won't do anything." "Okay." Ben put his contact lenses back on, put away the sippy cups, and climbed into bed. "Oh! What kind of mattress is that?" Bailey said to R. Daniel. "I don't think you mind sitting?" "Of course I don't mind. By the way, I am very interested in the strange glass that Bentley sticks on the eyeballs. Do all people on Earth wear this thing?" "No, only some people wear them." Bailey said absently, "I don't wear them." "Why do you need to wear it?" Bai Lai was thinking about his own business, but did not answer.He was thinking about something that made him uneasy.The lights went out. Bailey wasn't asleep yet.He vaguely felt that Ben's breathing became deep and regular, and it was actually a little unpleasant. He turned his head and vaguely saw R. Daniel sitting motionless on a chair with his face facing the door. Soon he fell asleep and dreamed again. He dreamed that Jessie was falling into the splinter tank of the nuclear power plant, she was falling, falling...she reached out to him, screaming, but he could only stand frozen outside a crimson line, watching her The falling body was twisting and turning, getting smaller and smaller, and finally turned into a point. In the dream, he could only look at her, and it was clear that he was the one pushing her down.