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moments to convey his wishes. It took even less time to receive confirmation.
    The instant the command was given and accepted, he put it aside. He had far more important things to attend to. Things that would change the world.
    This, at least, is settled, he told himself.
    He was wrong.

OXFORD, ENGLAND
Oxford University, College of Robotics

    Simon knocked on the wooden door as hard as he could. Nothing happened. Thirty seconds later, he knocked again. Still nothing.
    Oxford’s College of Robotics was housed in some of the university’s oldest buildings—quite a statement for a university that was almost nine hundred years old. In fact, it was actually a collection of cottages and low-slung warehouses, some erected centuries ago, some put up as recently as a year ago. In the middle of the confusion was a two-story stone-and-plaster house with a wood-shingle roof: the office, home, and laboratory for one of the most respected and least liked experts in the field, and one of Oliver Fitzpatrick’s oldest friends.
    And Simon needed to see him. Now.
    He knocked a third time, waited an impatient ten seconds, then turned the knob and pushed his way in. Of course it’s not locked, he told himself. It never is.
    It looked as if a small bomb had exploded in the entryway: papers strewn everywhere, teetering stacks of old books, data chips scattered like snack food. The furniture—what he could see of it—was almost as ancient as the house and remarkably ugly. The tiny-paned windows were blurred with grime, and most horizontal surfaces were dull with dust.
    “Hell of a housekeeper,” Simon muttered to himself, and stumped down the hallway to the basement stairs. “Hayden!” he shouted as he dodged the debris. “HAYDEN!”
    A high-pitched, young female voice with a pronounced Liverpool accent called up from below. “Down here, Dr. Fitzpatrick!”
    Oh, great, Simon thought. She’s here, too.
    He was careful going down the stairs—at least two of the steps were dark with rot and cracked from end to end. As he descended, the quality of light changed from the dim reflected sunlight of the untended rooms above to the blue-white glow of the workspace. It made his eyes hurt even though he knew what to expect.
    He had to step over an upturned stool to completely enter the lab. The room was huge compared to the space above, at least three times the floor space and twice the height, slightly too cold to be comfortable and absolutely without scent or shadow. It was almost inhumanly tidy as well: every piece of equipment was in its place on a labeled shelf, every worktop was clear and clean. Even the piles of printouts on the desk (and who other than Hayden still used printouts, Simon wondered idly) were stacked with geometric precision. None of that was the work of Hayden’s brilliant but disorganized mind, he knew. No, that was someone else’s doing entirely.
    The robot responsible for the extraordinary organization turned part of its jumbled face-panel toward him as he entered. “You usually call ahead,” its female voice emanated from somewhere near the center of its seething metallic mass. “You did not think that was necessary on this occasion?”
    “Lovely to see you as well, T.E.A.H.,” he said acidly.
    He stopped short when he saw what his father’s old friend and his prize robot were doing. They were facing each other, hunched over a small rectangular panel, heads down, in deep contemplation.
    Chess, he thought, and smiled to himself. I should have known.
    “Why do you do that, Simon?” Hayden grumbled. “Call her by the full designation? You know it just sets her off. Just call her Teah.”
    Simon blinked innocently. “Does it?”
    Hayden sighed deeply. “Oh, for pity’s sake…”
    Something and whirred in Teah’s sensor array. “Your pulse is slightly elevated, Professor,” she said to Simon. “Subcutaneous capillary action is above average, and detectable encephalic activity is accelerated as well. What