Buy or Die. There cometh a time of ruthless advertising

Nor can iron brain dream,

And Steel God is a fake

And steel Spirit is steam.”

It was a forbidden song, although, of course, every robot knew it. Masters knew it too. But never before had Z seen someone singing it aloud. For all he knew, Deconstruction was the punishment for such an offence.

“Love is managed by programs

Friends are given by bugs,

Life is weighed in grams

And is priced in the bucks.

But they say there is land

Whence red meat was banished,

Any warm flesh was banned

And live clay has perished…”

The door slammed behind Z cutting the song short.

***

In the room, a commandant at the table was anxiously listening to something.

“Did you hear that?” he asked nervously.

Z shook his head, and the commandant sighed. Though having both a rank and IQ higher than that of the guard, he still was not entitled to have a lower half either.

“This work is driving me mad. It seemed to me that I heard… Well, it does not matter.”

He scratched the back of his neck with a shrill metallic sound, making Z suffer from a sudden attack of a nasty toothache.

“Well,” the commandant cheered up, “let’s proceed to the instruction.”

He raised his finger with importance.

“First and foremost: there were new changes in the Charter of the Undo service. Namely, in the tenth line of page thirty-six of the first book of the Charter, the phrase ‘An Undo officer is not afraid of anything but dishonor’ was replaced with ‘An Undo officer fears nothing.’ Next. In the third line of page two hundred thirty-eight of the third book of the Charter…”

The commandant stopped.

“You are not writing this down,” he remarked.

“I will remember,” Z promised.

The commandant shook his head doubtfully and continued.

“In the third line of page two hundred thirty-eight of the second book of the Charter a phrase ‘An Undo officer must conscientiously fulfill…’ was replaced with ‘An Undo officer must zealously fulfill…’ Finally, in a footnote on the sixtieth page of the third book of the Charter, it should read ‘self-sacrifice’ instead of ‘self-denial’.”

“Next…” The commandant looked at his raised finger in surprise, lowered it and raised again.

“News from the front. Not for a minute, not for a second are you to forget that there is a war going on here and now. The real war,” he answered to Z’s surprised look. “The war in which our friends and comrades perish, leaving their families without a… without a… Well, just leaving their families.”

The commandant looked sternly at Z, and he made the appropriate face.

“The enemy does not sleep. Every minute, every second the enemy tests our strength, looking for weak spots in our defense and striking blows to the most sensitive and vulnerable parts of our society.”

The commandant lowered his voice.

“Here is a bulletin for the elapsed day. Almost seven thousand cases of forced purchase detected; some six hundred cases of theft of personal time on a large scale and three thousand cases of similar theft in lesser amounts; more than six hundred cases of non-return, eight of which were lethal. In their memory, I declare a minute of silence!”

The commandant tried to get up and even put his hands on the table, but there was nothing under the table that was capable of letting him get up. Z nodded solemnly, making it clear that the impulse was perceived correctly and felt deeply.

When the minute was over, the commandant collapsed into a chair and continued:

“Your task for today is to patrol Eleventh, Twelfth, Eighth and Ninth streets. In other words,” the commandant looked at Z with barely concealed contempt, “just ride in the car along these four streets and see if something bad happens, and when it happens, react as is required by Charter. Do you have any questions?”

“God forbid!” Z shouted.

“God forbid!” the commandant echoed piously.

“Excuse me, sir. That’s just a human saying,” Z explained, hiding a smile. “It doesn’t require any response.”

“Very well then,” the commandant nodded dryly. “Roll up your sleeve.”

Z obeyed. The commandant took a syringe from the table and gave an injection. From the needle, a dull gray stain began to spread rapidly over the hand. Z knew that in a minute he would be gray from head to toe, including his clothes and the whites of his eyes. An Undo officer was not someone who could be easily lost in the crowd.

It is not known whether this was a harmless psychological effect, or whether the injection did contain some additives; but along with a gray color, the Undo officers invariably acquired an extra set of extremely positive qualities. Everyone had a different set. Z, for example, felt much braver after the injection, stronger and nobler than before. And much more honest too. Many times, having regained his natural pink color in the evening, he was ready to gnaw at his elbows, recollecting all the opportunities that had been missed in the morning.

Meanwhile, the commandant was already holding Purifier, ready to hand it over to Z.

“Do you swear to use Purifier only for the good of the city?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear not to use Purifier where you can do without it?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear to use Purifier where you can’t do without it?”

“I swear.”

The commandant sighed and reluctantly parted with the weapon.