“You got to me,” the robot asked. “Ha!” sounded a prerecorded, boisterous sample from the robot’s internal speaker, “That’s non-monetarily rich.”

“Oh, you think so,” Roy asked.

“I just said so, didn’t I,” the robot replied, Roy’s eyes rolling. “And just so you know, Roy, you didn’t get to me,” the robot added as it continued to tinker about with its arm, now going from what might be considered its shoulder down the vertebral line tapping on the individual components of the control servos that gave its arms their snake like mobility with the edge of its opposite paddled hand and listening to the fidelity and resonance of the resulting audible tone, but turning the focus of its optical unit from its arm toward Ro...

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