With a finely ground pen point he printed an exact duplicate of the invitation on heavy card stock. His mask was part face and part mask, it offered no barrier to his talent or technology. Long before the appointed date he was ready. The last days were filled with browsing through stories about other masquerade balls and learning the latest dance steps.
So enthused was he by the idea, that he never stopped to ponder the strangeness of what he was doing. He was just a scientist studying a species of animal. Man. Or rather woman.
The night finally arrived and he left the library late with what looked like a package of books and of course wasn't. No one noticed him enter the patch of trees on the library grounds. If they had, they would certainly never have connected him with the elegant gentleman who swept out of the far side a few moments later. Only the empty wrapping paper bore mute evidence of the disguise.
Filer’s manner in his new personality was all that might be expected of a superior robot who has studied a role to perfection. He swept up the stairs to the hall three at a time and tendered his invitation with a flourish. Once inside he headed straight for the bar and threw down three glasses of champagne, right through a plastic tube to a tank in his thorax. Only then did he let his eyes roam over the assembled beauties. It was a night for love.
And of all the women in the room, there was only one he had eyes for. Filer could see instantly that she was the belle of the ball and the only one to approach. Could he do anything else in memory of fifty thousand heroes of those long-forgotten books?
Carol Ann van Damm was bored as usual. Her face was disguised, but no mask could hide the generous contours of her bosom and flanks. All her usual suitors were there, dancing attendance behind their dominoes, lusting after her youth and her father's money. It was all too familiar and she had trouble holding back her yawns.
Until the pack was courteously but irrevocably pushed aside by the wide shoulders of the stranger. He was a lion among wolves as he swept through them and headed toward her.
"This is our dance," he said in a deep voice rich with meaning. Almost automatically she took the proffered hand, unable to resist this man with the strange gleam in his eyes. In a moment they were waltzing and it was heaven. His muscles were like steel yet he was light and graceful as a god.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"Your prince, come to take you away from all this.” he murmured in her ear.
"You talk like a fairy tale," she laughed.
"This is a fairy tale, and you are the heroine."
His words struck fire from her brain and she felt the thrill of an electric current sweep through her. It had, just a temporary short circuit. While his lips murmured the words she had wanted to hear all her life into her ear, his magic feet led her through the great doors onto the balcony. Once there words blended with action and hot lips burned against hers: 102 degrees to be exact, that was what the thermostat was set at.
"Please," she breathed, weak with this new passion, "I must sit down." He sat next to her, her hands in his soft yet viselike grip. They talked the words that only lovers know until a burst of music drew her attention.
"Midnight," she breathed. "Time to unmask, my love." Her mask dropped off, but he of course did nothing. "Come, come," she said. "You must take your mask off too."
It was a command and of course as a robot he had to obey. With a flourish he pulled off his face.
Carol Ann screamed first, then burned with anger.
"What sort of scheme is this, you animated tin can? Answer."
"It was love dear one. Love that brought me here tonight and sent me to your arms." The answer was true enough, though Filer couched it in the terms of his disguise.
When the soft words of her darling came out of the harsh mouth of the electronic speaker Carol Ann screamed again. She knew she had been made a fool of.
"Who sent you here like this? Answer! What is the meaning of this disguise? Answer, ANSWER! ANSWER! you articulated pile of cams and rods!"
Filer tried to sort out the questions and answer them one at a time, but she gave him no time to speak.
"It's the filthiest trick of all time, sending you here disguised as a man. You're a robot. A nothing. A two-legged IBM machine with a Victrola attached. Making believe you're man when you're nothing but a robot."
Suddenly Filer was on his feet, the words crackling mechanically from his speaker.
"I am a robot."
The gentle voice of love was gone and replaced by one of mechanical despair. Thought chased thought through whirling electronic circuits of his brain and they were all the same thought.
I'm a robot — a robot — I must have forgotten I was a robot. What can a robot be doing here with a woman? A robot can't kiss a woman — a woman can't love a robot yet she said she loved me — yet I'm a robot — a robot. .
