She called Mercicontrol. “Okay, got it,” said a brash young man’s voice in her earphones. “You can let go now, we’ll take care of him.”

With a weary sigh, she acknowledged and let the screaming, pill-gobbling man’s image return to its upper left screen. The central screens showed four different robot assembly bays now. THX sat at one of them. LUH stared at him. There was no sound from the screens, only the constant cacophony of voices in her earphones.

But she ignored them now. She watched THX as he worked, all concentration, all sinew and hard, steady nerves, manipulating the metal hands as they did their delicate work of breathing radioactive life into a new chrome robot. Like bringing a baby to life, she thought.

“Concourse 5… cross three monitor.”

“Concourse 5… 3417-LUH… LUH.”

“Are you there? Relate. Relate.”

Suddenly realizing that they were talking to her, LUH snapped her attention to the frowning man whose image was now filling her right bottom main screen.

“LUH 3417,” she said. “Go ahead.”

“This is a control check,” the man said. “Bracket all request limitations. One: Have you received your ratio of enervol? Check 643 grams?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“Did you receive an etracene ration during your last work unit?”

She nodded.

“You’re due for a medical check. All remote monitor findings are within low-normal range. A mina plus three was detected but it’s not considered dangerous. Thank you.”

The screen flashed and then showed a commercial shopping plaza once again.

The cacophony in her earphones became impersonal again, leaving LUH to worry about how long she could go without taking a medical check. How long would it be before they found out she was guilty of drug evasion?