XI

As soon as he was out of sight I pulled out the papers and scanned them quickly. Here lay my opportunity if I had enough time to grab it. There was the doctor’s report⁠—in quadruplicate. Until these forms were fed into the machinery I didn’t exist. I was in a statistical limbo out of which I would be born into the hospital. Stillborn if I had my way. I pushed my pillow off onto the corridor floor and the robot stopped. He paid no attention to my writing and didn’t seem to mind stopping two more times to rescue the pillow, giving me time to finish my forgery.

This Doctor Mcvbklz⁠—at least that’s what his signature reads like⁠—had a lot to learn about signing papers. He had left acres of clear space between the last line of the report and his signature. I filled this with a very passable imitation of his handwriting. “Massive internal hemorrhage, shock⁠ ⁠…” I wrote, “died en route.” This sounded official enough. I quickly added “All attempts resuscitation failed.” I had a moment of doubt about spelling this jaw breaker, but since Dr. Mcvbklz thought there were two P ’s in multiple he could be expected to muff this one too. This last line made sure there wouldn’t be any hanky-panky with needles and electric prods to jazz some life back into the corpse. We turned out of the corridor just as I slipped the forms back into their slot and lay back trying to look dead.

“Here’s a D.O.A. , Svend,” someone called out, rustling the papers behind my head. I heard the robot rolling away, untroubled by the fact that his writing, pillow-shedding patient was suddenly dead. This lack of curiosity is what I like about robots. I tried to think dead thoughts and hoped the right expression was showing on my face. Something jerked at my left foot and my boot and sock were pulled off. A hand grabbed my foot.

“How tragic,” this sympathetic soul said, “he’s still warm. Maybe we should put him on the table and get the revival team down.” What a nosy, mealymouthed, interfering sod he was.