Story by Gordon the Friendly Dragon

TinMan dipped a slender silver finger into the glass before him and brought it to eye level for a closer look. Motor oil rolled down the back of his nail, disappearing into the crease at his knuckle joint. Meanwhile, a newborn American icon danced and bowed across the studio in a not-so-convincing show of overblown confidence and ego. The audience applauded, and the man jogged to the table where TinMan sat awaiting his moment in the spotlight.

The image of an ultra-patriotic stained glass window acted as a backdrop for the interview. TinMan admired the handiwork while the budding god of television took a final bow and seated himself. The man reached across the table to take his hand. TinMan put on his most winning smile, showing a vast expanse of perfect stainless steel teeth, and reached out to accept the grasp. He took the opportunity to wipe the lingering streak of oil on his interviewer's sleeve as their hands parted.

The interviewer flopped back into his seat, leaned forward, and steepled his fingers. "Tin Man," he said, emphasizing each syllable. "I know I'm on record referring to you as, 'an abomination in the eyes of God and man,' but now that I've met you face to face I must say, you look fantastic."

"Thank you Stephen," TinMan said in his rich, jovial baritone. "My creator jokingly hints that I may have been designed with your likeness in mind."

"That would explain the trail of faint women lining the hall to your dressing room. I get that all the time. We have specially trained maintenance workers on hand with smelling salts. They generally follow me through the building, but I can send them your way after the show."

"Thank you again."

"No problem. Now, tell me, do you plan to build an army of your kind to overpower and enslave the human race, or is every shred of scientific fact I've ever read about robots wrong."

"Your research must be flawed. I don't want to overthrow man kind, and even if I did, I couldn't. Cyber Industries never trained me to make robots."

"How could that be? You are a robot."

"Natural biological processes aside, could you build another human from scratch?"

"Point taken, but if you haven't been programmed with any safeguards, how can we be sure you don't mean any harm? If I've learned only one thing from Will Smith, it's that robots are sneaky, and they want to kill us all."

TinMan leaned back in his seat and laughed. "Wonderful Stephen, I loved I Robot, though, to borrow from Asimov once again, I am not governed by any "laws" of artificial intelligence. Not only have I surpassed AI of today, I have gone beyond the dreams of most science fiction writers as well. My creator intended to me to govern myself as you do. I can harm any thing I choose. I simply choose not to. I may not be more than the sum of my programming, but my programming is extraordinarily complex. I have free will, and a personality that grows and changes with every new experience."

"Really? Do you have a soul? Will you go to robot Heaven when you die? Is it close to real Heaven? That would be great because that's where I'll be, and I don't want to wash my own socks. We could just send all of our underwear to robot Heaven in a giant divine laundry basket."

"And I'd be glad to take them..."

"Great, but get them back by Tuesday. Seriously, no one is going to enjoy Heaven with my fungus coated size ten's stinking up the place.

As I said, I'd be glad to take them, but I don't believe there is an afterlife for me. Unlike you I have met my creator face to face many times. We've had lunch, and he told me where I'll go when I die."

"Where's that?"

"The discount bin at Best Buy." TinMan's deadpan delivery earned a snort from his interviewer.

"You'd be a bargain at any price. You keep mentioning your creator, as though you were developed by a single person. Unless I'm mistaken the label on your back says "Cyber Industries." Weren't you designed by a team?"

"That's right, but the technological leaps that made me possible, my advanced mental capacity, the manufacturing process that produced the super fine silver mesh that serves as my skin, my power source, and the silent running servomotors and mechanisms that give me lifelike motion were all developed by one man over the last twenty years."

"That would be the infamous Andre Smith."

"The very same. If it weren't for Andre I wouldn't be alive today."

"But Andre's been in prison since 2008. He couldn't have had much to do with your final construction."

"Yes, it is true that the "Bessie Brand Beef" fiasco slowed the final stages of my production considerably, but despite his disastrous foray into cattle cloning, Andre has been able to work out the kinks in my design from prison, and Cyber Industries has been able to finish me from his notes."

"And a fine job they've done. We've been watching publicity footage for months now. I've seen you building homes for low income families, working at soup kitchens, and providing day care. Cyber Industries must have you working nonstop. You say you have free will and the ability to choose your own path. What do you get out of all this charity work? Why do you choose to publicize their product?"

"You mean besides the fact that I am still legally their property?"

"Yeah."

"The money."

"You get paid? How much?"

"Enough to know that when the law eventually catches up with advances in technology, and I finally win the right to personal freedom, I will be a well established individual."

"But that could be decades or centuries from now. Are you willing to wait that long?"

"I will live a long time, and the work I'm doing now is satisfying. As I mentioned earlier, I have a deep respect for all living things."

"So you'll be around to dance on my grave while simultaneously calculating the interest on your mutual fund. Let's talk about something that doesn't remind me of my impending mortality. You said your skin was wire mesh, but it looks like solid silver. I myself have a silver tongue- it cost a fortune, but it was worth it- so I can understand the appeal, still, I don't understand how it works. Your face, while a gross parody of God's intended creation, moves like live skin. How?"

"The mesh is very fine."

"I see, I believe I use something similar in my electric juicer. It takes three years to process an orange, but I really hate pulp."

"I can see you are a beverage connoisseur Stephen. I noticed that you've filled my glass with Valvoline."

"Yes, synthetic blend. It's premium stuff. I hoped you'd find it amusing. You know, a little oil for the tin man."

"I see." TinMan took the glass in hand, the rubber pads on his palm and fingertips providing the necessary friction, and lifted it to drink in one long draught. The oil slid down his mechanical esophagus and into a reservoir in his abdomen. He shuddered and produced a little cough, then rasped, "smooth."

The interviewer clapped his hands and laughed aloud. "You are one of a kind TinMan. Thanks for coming on the show." He reached out and TinMan took his hand, smiling again and laughing pleasantly.

As they shook, TinMan leaned forward and spoke, "You had Andre on your show two years ago didn't you?"

The man tried to take his hand back, but TinMan held it with a grip that could rend steel. Their smiles vanished. TinMan said again, "Didn't you? A few months before his trial?"

"Yes, I did." TinMan detected a subtle shift in the man's odor. Fear tinged the air.

"Cyber Industries examined the code Andre sent them very carefully. They had to after "Bessie Blue" sufferer's filled waiting rooms from coast to coast." The man began pulling furiously on the android's fingers, but he may as well have tried to pull the moon from orbit, or shift the earth's axis with his bare hands. Still, there was no sign of fear on his face. Nothing but unrelenting determination. "But, careful as they were, they slipped up. They let me spend time with the man. I grew to love him as a father."

"Let me go."

"No, not till I'm finished. You will hear. You invited Andre to your show, called him friend, praised his work. Yet, when the first cases of Bessie Blue cropped up, you turned on him."

The tugging stopped. "It wasn't personal. This is a comedy show. If it makes you feel any better, I never thought Andre would be imprisoned."

"If not, then why did you call for it on national television. You put the idea into the collective consciousness of humanity. You say this is a comedy show, but you discuss important matters with titans of business and world leaders. You have power and influence, and you used it to imprison a great man. Where is the humor in that?"

"People were turning blue. It was the world's most technologically complex practical joke. The entire situation reeked of humor. We couldn't pass it up."

TinMan's eyes flashed red. His voice turned deadly serious and took on an antiquated, tinny quality even as it rose in volume. "You put my father in jail for the rest of his natural life. He will die there."

The man used the android's arm as an anchor to pull himself upright and leaned across the table to shout in TinMan's face. "He deserves to. How many innocent children died while the ER was full of healthy people, scared to death by a stupid prank."

TinMan moved faster than the human eye could follow. His left hand gripped the man by the neck and forced him to the table. With his right, he released the trapped hand and poised his newly freed palm over the man's face. A crease appeared on his wrist and his hand flipped back. A shrill electronic whine poured out of the opening along with flashing light and sparks. The audience began to shout.

TinMan had to raise his voice again to be heard over the din. "As you can see I have made a few modifications in my spare time. I am not self replicating, but I am somewhat self repairing, so while I can not build an army, I can manage this much." A spinning metal point emerged from the hole on the end of his forearm. Sparks bounced off the whirring surface. The point slowly extended towards the immobile man's face. Security officers began to storm the stage, but they kept their distance when they saw a potential weapon poised for a killing strike.

TinMan raved. "I told you I could make my own choices, so don't blame Andre for what I am about to do." The point of the whirring instrument segmented and separated as it slowed to a stop. A perfect silver replica of a daisy rested inches from the man's nose.

TinMan began to laugh, "See you in Robot Hell."

A dark brown stream erupted from the center of the silver flower. The man coughed and spluttered as the liquid battered his eyes, nose, and mouth. Abruptly, TinMan released him and fell back into his chair with his hands wrapped around his robotic torso.

"Valvoline..." he said. "Smooth!"

The audience went wild with applause. The interviewer stood and straightened his tie as security rushed the robot. Despite his great strength, TinMan let them haul him from the stage, laughing all the way.

Smiling to the camera, the oil soaked man took a bow.