"I'm listening. But—"
"But nothing. Only listen. This Central Intelligence is a vast cybernetics machine occupying an entire building—ironically, it is the United Nations building where once were housed the dreams of mankind. Now, understand this, Johnny. Every Robot in North and South America has its own particular wavelength, although the master intelligence is in tune with all of them. Each individual Robot sentience is dependent for its existence upon the great cybernetics machines in Central Intelligence. In other words, if you were to destroy them, at one blow you would 'kill' every Robot in the hemisphere!"
"How did you find all that out?"
Westler smiled. "There was one thing the Robots did not bargain for—an ex-college professor! The information was available in, of all places, the main library for humans here in the city. It took some finding, but as an old hand at research I had an edge even on the Robots with their mechanical minds. Anyway, all you'd have to do is destroy this Central Intelligence, and—"
"Might as well say destroy the moon, Amos. It's probably so well guarded a whole Army of men couldn't break through, let alone two of us."
"That's right," Westler said eagerly, "men could never hope to get through, but Robots could."
"What are you talking about?"
"The second thing I learned tonight. Once again, it was so deeply cross-referenced, so thoroughly hidden away that although it was available if one knew where to look, the science of research is such a dead thing that no one knew of its existence, probably not even the Robots. Johnny, the earliest model Robots were built to function in a double fashion. They were Robots, yes—but they are also compartments in which a man can fit for manual control. They were originally designed, you might say, as glorified suits of armor. While the research material is naturally old, all I could gather seems to indicate that no changes have ever been made structurally in those early models. In other words, a man could climb inside a Robot today, right now, and no one would know the difference."
"You're forgetting one thing," Johnny pointed out. "Are you going to walk up to a Robot and tell him, 'Pardon me, old fellow, I'd like to borrow you and use you for a disguise for a while'?"