"Actually, I am an android survival machine. My name is Mr. Gordons."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Gordons, I'm real sorry about the confusion. Real sorry. I'll ask the studio to put a disclaimer on the next episode so it won't happen again." Larry inched to the door. Mr. Gordons matched him step for step. Larry gave up.
"I appreciate your sympathy. Although I am a machine, I have the capability of feeling emotion. Also I can transform myself into any object with which I come in contact."
"Yeah, that's handy, all right. Real handy. Popular, too. I know lots of robots who can do that. Almost all of them, actually."
"I told you, I am not a robot. I am a survival android. My name is Mr. Gordons."
"Right. I got that. 'Robot' was just a figure of speech. No offense."
"None taken. Would you like to see me assimilate an object of your choice?"
"I really would, but I have to finish making Spideroids."
"What are Spideroids?"
"Cartoon characters. They're spiders who turn into androids."
"Would you like to see me become a spider, then?"
"No, not that," Larry said hastily. "I hate spiders. They crawl up my pants leg and make me itch."
"I would become a very big spider, and I would promise not to crawl up your leg if you do not wish it."
"Thanks just the same. Okay if I go back to work now?"
"I will watch you work," said Mr. Gordons. "Perhaps I will learn something useful."
"Suit yourself," said Larry Lepper, backing into the other room. He climbed behind his drawing board and pretended to get to work. Maybe the nut would get bored and leave.
Mr. Gordons watched him silently. He gave Larry the creeps, but he was afraid to make a break for it. When Larry had not drawn a single line for five minutes, Mr. Gordons had a question.
"Why are you not working?" he asked.
"I can't think of a name for this one."
Mr. Gordons looked at the model sheet and the blank space at the bottom for the name.
"I am very creative. It is one of my newer skills. Let me try."
"Sure," said Larry Lepper, who couldn't get out of Mr. Gordons' way fast enough. "Go right ahead. I'll get lunch."
"Wait. I will not be long."
"Took me all weekend to do all those sheets," said Larry Lepper, and then he stopped talking.
The right-hand fingers of the man who called himself Mr. Gordons blurred suddenly. One minute he was touching the tumbler of ink pens on the desk, and then the next, he had an assortment of drawing utensils for fingers.
As Larry Lepper watched, slack-jawed, Mr. Gordons began writing names onto the model sheets with his index finger, which was a pencil. He inked them with his other fingers, which ended in different size nibs. His thumb was an ink eraser, but Gordons never resorted to it. He seemed incapable of drawing a false line.
Less than a minute after he began, Mr. Gordons handed a stupefied Larry Lepper a neat stack of model sheets. Larry went through them, his eyes bulging like those of a thyroid patient.
"Gobblelegs, Spinner, Spiderette," Larry read. "These are pretty good names-considering industry standards these days."
"Thank you. I also took the liberty of modifying some of your designs so that they are more practical."
"We usually don't worry about that stuff. The animators can't be bothered to keep the characters consistent half the time."
"Is there anything else?"
"Can you do the android robot counterparts? I'm having trouble with that part."
"You are my friend so I will do this for you," said Mr. Gordons, and taking several blank sheets and ten minutes' time, he produced a set of model-sheet androids that exactly matched the Spideroid drawings.
Larry Lepper was astonished. This Gordons character didn't even refer to the original sheets. Yet his robots were perfect. They looked like they could be built. In the margins Gordons had even worked out weight specifications, gear ratios, and other technical details that would have been absurd if they didn't look so damned plausible.
"You really are an android," said Larry Lepper wonderingly.
"If you had known me before today, you would not have doubted me," said Mr. Gordons. "I do not lie."
"That means you can really turn into other stuff, like the Robokids do. Really?"
"Really. Would you like me to demonstrate?"
"No! I mean, yeah. Maybe." Larry Lepper was thinking at a furious pace. This nut or machine or whatever it was seemed to like him.
"Please make up your mind. I have enemies and now that I understand I cannot rely on the fictitious Commander Robot, I must discover a new form to take so that my enemies will not find me."
"You can turn into anything?"
"Yes. I require only appropriate raw materials to assimilate. "
Larry Lepper looked at Mr. Gordons and his all-purpose drawing hand.
"I'm your friend, right?"
"You are my friend, right."
"And you can turn into anything?"
"I have already said that."
"Anything I ask, right?"
"Yes. "