Jack was pale under his freckles but Chief Dalton grinned back at me. "We'll be right behind you, Morrison," he said.
Behind me! So they could pick up the pieces. I gave them a cocky smile and switched on the engine, full speed.
Carron City is about a mile from the plant. It has about fifty thousand inhabitants. At that moment, though, there wasn't a soul in the streets. I heard people calling to each other inside their houses, but I didn't see anyone, human or android. I circled in for a landing, the Police Copter hovering maybe a quarter of a mile back of me. Then, as the wheels touched, half a dozen androids came around the corner. They saw me and stopped, a couple of them backing off the way they had come. But the biggest of them turned and gave them some order that froze them in their tracks, and then he himself wheeled down toward me.
He was one of mine. I recognized him easily. Eight feet tall, with long, jointed arms for pile work, red-lidded phosphorescent eye-cells, casters on his feet so that he moved as if rollerskating. Automatically I classified him: Final Sorter, Morrison 5A type. The very best. Cost three thousand credits to build....
I stepped out of the Copter and walked to meet him. He wasn't armed; he didn't seem violent. But this was, after all, something new. Robots weren't supposed to act on their own initiative.
"What's your number?" I asked.
He stared back, and I could have sworn he was mocking me. "My number?" he finally said. "It was 5A-37."
"Was?"
"Yes. Now it's Jerry. I always did like that name."