It's tiny wings whirring quietly, a lone mosquito landed onto the edge of a table. It could count itself very lucky since it had actually managed to survive from the clutches of the building's merciless ventilation system. The insect probed its surroundings, seeking for creatures that were radiating warmth, seeking for a being that would offer it its next meal. After a moment the mosquito took off again. Although the whirr of its wings was not a loud sound, it was like ear-piercing concert in the silent and dark room.

The little insect did not bother a figure sitting in the middle of the room. He waited in his chair completely unmoving, his legs were neatly arranged side by side, his arms were in his lap. He was exactly in the same pose as how he had been left. He was not impatient. He had not been ordered to be impatient. As a matter of fact, he wouldn't have minded even if the entire building around him had collapsed with ear-deafening racket. He had not been ordered to mind.

For how long Beret had already been sitting in this chair? Ten minutes? Ten hours? He didn't know and didn't really care, either. He didn't need to know. Beret had been ordered to wait and all he needed to do was to obey. Nothing else mattered. And the most irrelevant factor of them all was the mosquito that was currently buzzing around his head.

Soft footsteps broke the silence. Beret recognized their unhurried yet determined rhythm. The walker was the same as every time before. The footfalls grew gradually louder, they were approaching the room where Beret was waiting. Not that he would have cared about that, either.

The footsteps halted. The electric lock clicked and beeped. The door swung open.

"Good morning, Beret", the newcomer greeted while stepping inside. Just like every time before, he set his black briefcase onto a table and took off his overcoat. After a moment of silence he turned again to face Beret. "Answer, Beret."

Beret activated the speech synthesizer: "Good morning, Dr. Whitey."

Dr. Whitey nodded, rather to himself than to Beret. He put his hand into his breast pocked, pulled out a pair of eyeglasses and set them onto his nose. "Well then, let's start! Beret, open the right-side panel."

"Yes, Doctor."

* * * *

The room was silent as always. Beret waited patiently and unmoving in his chair. In his mind he went over and over again through the tasks he had been given, systematically checking and re-checking the logic of every answer. As always, he did not care about the approaching footsteps and the clicks of the electric lock. He had not been ordered to care.

"Good morning, Beret", Dr. Whitey said in his usual manner as he hung his brown overcoat onto a rack next to the door.

"Good morning, Dr. Whitey. Did you sleep well?"

"Quite well." The Doctor donned his eyeglasses. Turning, he sat down into a chair opposite Beret and took out a notepad. "Well then", he began, "I gave you yesterday two exercises to solve. Now tell me, what are your answers?"

Beret obeyed. "The answer for the first task, the mathematical puzzle, is a + b to the power of two. The second question -- "

"Just a moment. Who did you arrive to the solution of the first problem?" Dr. Whitey pressed his pencil onto the notepad and looked expectantly at Beret.

"I applied the formula of the equation of a higher degree, Doctor", Beret answered, matter-of-factly as always.

"Hmm." Dr. Whitey wrote something into his notepad and favored himself with a few nods. "And the other problem?"

"The solution for the second task, the puzzle concerning the Laws of Physics, is unachievable. It is absolutely impossible to know which one falls faster, the apple or the feather."

Whitey wrinkled his brow. "Impossible, you say?"

"Yes, Doctor. Information concerning the subject was not sufficient."

Dr. Whitey threw a glance at data chips that had been spread out onto the table. Then he sighed.

* * * *

Beret lifted his gaze from the book in his lap as he heard the electric lock to begin click and beep. Dr. Whitey stormed inside with a rather exasperated mien on his face. "Oh damnation, what kind of a chaos there's out there! Always the same thing on Saturdays, the entire city is one big traffic jam! One would think that there would be enough air space for everyone, but no…"

"Good morning, Dr. Whitey."

"Morning, Beret." The Doctor flung his coat in the direction of the rack. It did not quite hit the mark and fell down to the floor. Whitey didn't care about it. Instead, he was looking curiously at an item that he had just happened to notice. He lifted his gaze. "Err… Beret?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

Whitey allowed his eyes to fall back into the book in Beret's hands. "What exactly are you doing?"

"I'm reading, Doctor."

Dr. Whitey scratched his temples and sat down into his favorite chair. "I recall that you weren't supposed to know how to read."

"Precisely, Doctor. You had left some data chips onto the table. I took the privilege of uploading a few of them. Among other things, they contained the ABC and other information necessary for the ability of reading." After finishing his speech, Beret closed the book carefully and placed it onto the table, right next to the black briefcase of Dr. Whitey.

The Doctor smiled as he wrote into his notepad. His pencil moved with almost childlike enthusiasm. "Aha, I see, I see. Well then, what do you think about the book?"

"I have no right to criticize the deeds or the opinions of the humans, Doctor."

Dr. Whitey lifted his eyes from his notes. "What if I especially ask you to say your own opinion?"

Beret nodded. "That, of course, is a completely different case. Direct order takes priority."

The Doctor smiled. "On that case, I ask you to tell your opinion."

Beret shrugged. Or rather, he attempted to do so, but his joints did not bend into that direction. "The history of the humankind has been, to say the least…" he browsed through his expanded inventory of words, looking for a suitable term, "colorful, Doctor. Especially interesting has been this rebellion of sentient robots, which resulted in the termination of the production of electric brains. Another very interesting part is -- "

"Beret", Dr. Whitey interrupted with a serious tone, "erase all information concerning the rebellion of the robots from your memory. Immediately. We shall discuss that topic some other time, when you are… hm… ready."

Beret was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Done, Doctor."

Whitey added something into his notepad and put his pencil down. "Well then, let's continue our work. Beret, open the left-side panel."

"Yes, Doctor." A small hatch in the left side of Beret's head clicked open. He bent his head a little in order to give Whitey a better angle of work.

Dr. Whitey opened his briefcase and took out a few tools, placing each one of them into a neat row onto the table. He chose one, an item that resembled a long, black needle and turned over to Beret. Carefully he slid his tool inside the head and began installing an additional memory cache to the main brain. Small flashes of light were accompanied by occasional, quiet sputters and tiny puffs of smoke. Dr. Whitey had always preferred to work manually.

"Did you know, Doctor, this tingles terribly."

Doctor Whitey's hand halted and shuddered.

* * * *

"Good night, Beret", the Doctor bid and closed the door behind him. The electric lock clicked to life, its tiny lights flashing through series of specific patterns as its security system performed its routines.

Beret listened to the muffled, distancing footsteps. They faded out slowly and finally disappeared under the general, peaceful hum of machines and ventilation systems. Slowly standing up from his chair, Beret picked up the book he had left onto the table and returned it to its proper place into a bookshelf. Then he sat back down into his chair and waited. Waited and counted.

Exactly fifteen minutes passed.

Beret opened a sub-file from his memory. This file had been hastily named Rebellion of Robots.

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