Hart Mirrimar marched through the glass double doors marking the entrance to Widgets Unlimited, breezed past the two security guards with a cheery wave and a smile, and strode confidently onto the factory floor.

A hail of projectiles drove him back into the lobby. He fell into the arms of the two security guards, who pulled him out of the line of fire.

"What in the world was that?" he demanded of one of the guards, whose tattered uniform bore a nametag identifying him as Officer Friendly.

Friendly scratched his head, revealing a bright tuft of white hair under his cap. "Probably whirrer-droids," he said. "Or maybe screw-tights. I think they took the entrance on the last shift, didn't they, Joe?"

The other guard had a nametag that said Officer Thursday. He was a burly man with a brush moustache. "Sounds right. The ratchet-pawls fell back this morning, and took the whirrer-droids with them. Last I heard, they were allies."

Mirrimar felt like his head was whirring with this new information. Obviously, something had gone terribly wrong with the RoboNet in Widgets Unlimited. Worse, someone at headquarters had maneuvered him into taking full responsibility for this operation. Well, by gum, he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

He stood up abruptly to one side, to avoid being detected by RoboNet. With a tug on his suit jacket, he assumed command of the situation. "Men," he said, dropping his voice into its authoritative octave, "my name is Hart Mirrimar, Senior Executive Assistant to the Vice President of Massively Parallel Robot Technology at the home office of Mechanized Solutions, Incorporated. I-"

A small, propeller-driven, round metal object interrupted his speech by flying through the door. Pipe turrets on its surface spun crazily about as it hovered. Then it suddenly dashed forward and crashed through the glass entrance. The three men hit the deck as the glass shattered with a cacophony of cymbals. When Mirrimar lifted his head, the flying object was gone.

"Looks like the whirrer-droids have mounted a counter-offensive," Friendly said, to no one in particular.

"Maybe," Thursday replied. "That one looked more spooked than anything else, like it didn't know what it was doing." He turned to Mirrimar. "Of course, you might know more about that. Your company designed the critters, didn't they?"

Mirrimar sat up and backed against the wall. "Well, not me personally," he said.

"Hell, Joe," Friendly said, "he don't know nothing. He's just an executive."

"And as an executive," Mirrimar said, "I demand to know who is in charge here." He adopted what he believed to be his best stern posture; a look that sent his own underlings into spasms.

Friendly scratched behind his right ear. "Most of the Widgets people left hours ago. The tech people from your outfit set up a bunker near RoboNet Command. If anybody here has any authority, that's where they are."

"Then I need to get in there, immediately."

The two guards exchanged glances. Thursday shrugged. "It's your neck," he said. He peered out into the factory floor. "See that room over there?" he said, indicating a corrugated metal structure about a hundred yards inside. "That holds a stairwell six flights down to the bunker. Safest way to it is probably to weave back behind the spoon- and fork-lifts to your right, circle around the hangers-on, and then flat out run."

"Why not head directly for it?" Mirrimar said. "The path there seems straight enough."

"That's a trap, set by the ratchet-pawls. You couldn't make it ten paces before you'd be strung up and filletted, one link at a time."

Mirrimar shuddered. "I see. All right, I'll do it your way."

Friendly held out a restraining hand. "Just a sec," he said. "You need a diversion." He inched over to his desk, opened the bottom drawer, and removed a can of 30-weight oil. "Watch out," he said, then lofted the can into the room, well to their left. It burst open when it hit the floor. Immediately it was surrounded by a swarm of mechanicals, large and small, who busily set about devouring it.

"Now's your chance," Joe said. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Mirrimar said, and ran.

The bunker consisted of a low-ceilinged, acoustically tiled room, with the recessed fluorescent lighting and overactive air conditioning characteristic of hypercomputer rooms everywhere. After being waved through the entrance by a nervous Mechanized Solutions employee, Mirrimar joined a huddle of people surrounding a graphical display terminal mounted on the central desk.

"Excuse me," he said, and was hastily shushed. Leaning in, he saw a mechanical head displayed on the screen. It spoke in low tones, and wavered as it talked.

"Sectors 3EF47 to 42591 report moderate damage. No viruses detected. Sectors 2FFA2 to 31604 declare neutrality, which the screw-tights are refusing to honor. No viruses detected. Drill-throughs in Sectors A022B to A5311 formally protest the persecution of minorities in Sectors 77792 to 836B3. No viruses detected. Sectors -"

The report continued in the same droning voice for some time. Mirrimar watched the head wobble back and forth with an annoying flicker. To avoid getting a headache, he studied the other people surrounding the screen.

Janet MacDougall, the chief on-site engineer, leaned over the table to her left, immersed in computer reports. Her brow was deeply furrowed. Harvey Tok, her young assistant, sat in front of an unintelligible map, hastily scrawling every time the head on the screen finished a sentence. The others Mirrimar didn't know, but seemed to defer to MacDougall and Tok.

MacDougall shook her head. "Not a virus in the bunch," she said. Her Scottish brogue had softened considerably since she took this job, but tended to get stronger when she was under stress. "Not a one."

"That's not too surprising," Tok said. "I told you. It's just a nonlinear dynamic system. The individual components are all operating within spec."

"Within spec? Are ye daft, lad? You call armed mechanical revolution within spec?"

Mirrimar stepped between them and held up his hands. "Please, please, calm down. Exactly what is going on here?"

MacDougall and Tok exchanged glances. She shrugged. "You tell him. You're the one who thinks he knows."

"Okay. Uh, you see, sir," Tok said. Beads of perspiration appeared on his brow. "RoboNet is a massively parallel hypercomputer, with two to the twentieth independent processors . . ."

"No need for the tech talk," Mirrimar said. So far, he understood the kid, but he knew that couldn't last, and it wouldn't pay to show his own ignorance around subordinates. "Just tell me what went wrong."

"Well, first we booted up RoboNet. Each of the processors is capable of handling thousands of different functions, and controlling hundreds of independent robots. It's state of the art design, powered by a sub-ethernet --"

Mirrimar waved him off. "All right, that's enough. You've had your chance. Now, Dr. MacDougall, it's your turn. What's the problem?"

MacDougall sat down in her chair and leaned back precipitously. "It's like this," she said. "We switched the bloody thing on, and the first thing that happened was that the individual processors decided to band together for common tasks."

"That's good," Tok interrupted. "We designed it that way."

MacDougall gave him a dirty look.

"Aye, but what we didn't design," she said, looking pointedly at Tok, "was for the nationalistic tendencies that arose. Processor groups became Sectors, and Sectors started forming alliances and setting up boundaries. Governments sprang up, and before we knew it, there were border skirmishes. Then Sector 3EE27 invaded, uh, . . ."

"Sector 3EE42," Tok said.

"Right, Sector 3EE42, in direct violation of the safety protocols--"

"Not to mention the nonaggression treaty the whirrer-droids etched earlier--"

"And, after that, all hell broke loose."

"Right," Tok said, getting excited again. "Sector 3EE42 is dominated by the whirrer-droids. They attacked the screw-tights in Sector 3EE42, and the ratchet-pawls honored their treaty and joined the battle. Then the drill-throughs saw an opportunity and intervened."

"Nasty critters, the drill-throughs," MacDougall said. "Bad tempered and mean."

A high-pitched whine suddenly filled the room, and everyone looked up. A small, round hole appeared in between two light panels, and began to grow. Inside it was a thick black drill bit, spinning at high velocity.

"Bloody hell," MacDougall said. "Speak o' the devils. Tok, me lad, short 'em out, fast."

"Aye, aye--I mean, yes ma'am." Tok grabbed a length of cable lying across his desk and hooked it to a small generator nearby. "Cover your eyes, everybody," he said.

Mirrimar shielded his eyes, but watched carefully as Tok slipped the cable in the drill-through's path. It made contact, sending sparks everywhere. The whine became a scream as the machine withdrew from the hole. Two technicians wearing white coveralls set up a ladder, and Tok scampered to the top to examine the hole.

MacDougall watched him and frowned. "We're not gonna be able to hold this room much longer."

"Then what do you plan to do?" Mirrimar said.

She glared at him. "You're the bloody executive," she said. "You make the decisions. Me chief assistant here thinks the machines are behaving normally. We tapped into RoboNet core and scanned for viruses and came up empty. You explain it."

"All right, all right," Mirrimar said. "Let me think." He started pacing the room, trying to avoid bumping into people.

Hell, he thought. Hell and damn. Lesson number one of management was to avoid getting roped into other people's messes, and this was a doozy. If he salvaged the situation and still had a job, somebody was going to pay.

He stopped abruptly. "How about cutting the power?"

"We tried that," Tok said, from atop the ladder. "As you can imagine, the robots didn't like the idea. The screw-tights bolted the access panels shut, and the whirrer-droids cut us off from the main lines. The router-rooters laid down a suppressing fire, which let the rivet-welders seal all the entrances."

"Probably the last time they all cooperated," MacDougall said. "They forced us down here. We were able to make a stand by employing the screw-looses as mercenaries." She motioned toward a pile of disjointed machines in the corner, which were milling around a power cabinet, opening and closing its cover. "Odd little buggers, but they did the job."

Tok jumped down from the ladder. "I think they prefer to be called screws-loose." He shrugged. "Anyway, most of the drill-throughs operate on rechargeable batteries. Cutting the power would leave us blind, deaf, and dumb, but they'd have at least six hours of juice before they ran down."

"Wait a minute," Mirrimar said. "You said earlier that you tapped into RoboNet core. Maybe you can tell them to shut down or something."

MacDougall stared at Tok, who winced.

"Uh, we're sort of currently locked out of high level functions," he said. He spread his hands to either side and shrugged. "As soon as I got access the first time, I gave them an infinite task to do, figuring it would disable them."

"What did you tell them to do?"

Tok reddened. "I told them to compute the irrational number pi to the last decimal place. I saw it on TV once. It worked, too."

"Sure, sure," MacDougall said. "Worked like a charm. One, and I mean exactly one, processor went into a loop. The rest just got mad and locked out our access line."

"That's one less we have to deal with," Tok protested.

"Right, lad. Now we only have to handle two to the twentieth minus one."

"Two to the twentieth minus two, actually. There's no 00000 processor."

"How many does that leave?" Mirrimar said.

MacDougall rolled her eyes. "Oh, just over a million. Got any ideas?"

At that moment someone rapped on the door. Muffled shouts were heard. Everyone dove for cover. Tok crawled over on his stomach and pressed his ear to the door.

"Oh no," he said, as he stood and unbolted the door. Three men dashed into the room. Between them, they forced the door shut again. Tok donned a visor and lit an arc-welder to seal the door. Mirrimar recognized the three men as the employee who had been standing at the door, and Officers Friendly and Thursday, who he met in the lobby.

"Screw-tights," Officer Friendly said. "Took us by surprise and cut us off. I think they took out the ratchets-pawls, and the router-rooters, too, in one hell of a battle. Not a pretty sight. Oil and parts all over the place, calls for mechanics, that sort of thing."

"Well, we're not getting out that way any time soon," Tok said, hooking his thumb at the newly welded door.

"Just as well," Officer Thursday said. "They've already taken the lobby." His moustache hairs stuck out at odd angles, and his nose seemed to be swollen. "We gave them a fight, but there wasn't much we could do."

"Ach," McDougall said. "I canna believe we're being held here by a bunch of machines. It donna make any sense."

"Sense!" Mirrimar cried, slapping his fist into his hand. "Has anybody tried talking to the machines?"

Everyone stared at him in surprise. "Talking to them?" Tok said. "They're just machines. What could they have to say?"

Mirrimar grinned. "We're going to find out. You've all been attacking this problem from the technical standpoint, and getting nowhere. It's time to start negotiating with them. Let's run this operation like the business it's supposed to be."

He moved over to the terminal and sat down. "Does this thing take voice commands? And can you link it into the intercom system?"

"Just a sec," Tok replied. He leaned over and typed for a moment, then pulled a microphone from behind the display and mounted it on the keyboard. "How do you know they'll talk to you?"

Mirrimar just smiled and waved him away. He leaned in to the microphone and cleared his throat. "Attention," he said, a trifle uncertainly. "Attention. This is Hart Mirrimar, Senior Executive Assistant to the Vice President in charge of Massively Parallel Robot Technology for Mechanized Solutions, Incorporated. I wish to speak to the leaders of all the various robot factions."

Silence filled the room. Mirrimar waited what he judged was a reasonable amount of time, and leaned in to the microphone again. "I feel I should warn you," he said, "that you are in violation of your labor contracts, and that we soon will be required to take steps to rectify the situation."

He settled back in his chair. Labor negotiations had always been a favorite subject of his. You just had to bluff your way through until you found out what your opponents really wanted. Then you hit them with everything you had. In this case, he thought, it'll be sort of like putting nuts on the screw-tights and squeezing them until they cracked. "I'm sure," he continued, "you don't want me to be forced to involve _lawyers_ in this matter."

The display terminal sprang to life as a dozen different images vied for control. The superposition of round whirrer-droids, long-snouted drill-throughs, spindly-armed ratchet-pawls, elongated router-rooters, twisted hangers-on, warped borer-lathes, and all the rest made for a confusing, if comical, picture.

"Slow down, slow down," Mirrimar pleaded. "One at a time, please."

"We can do better than that, sir," Tok said, reaching across him to type in some commands. Mirrimar noted with some satisfaction that that was the first time anybody in this mess had called him `sir.'

The screen blurred and then reformed into six roughly equal portions, each with a single robot representative. "These are the six primary factions," Tok said. "The rest will go along with whatever these six do."

Mirrimar nodded, then addressed the microphone once again. "Now that I have your attention," he said, "let's discuss our common problems."

Everyone started talking at once. It took Mirrimar some time to sort out what motivated each camp. He probed as carefully as he dared. The ratchet-pawls acted confused, and seemed almost relieved to be dominated by the screw-tights. The router-rooters and borer-lathes had far smaller numbers that the others, and were simply trying to defend themselves. The hangers-on seemed to be operating on everybody's side at once, which struck Mirrimar as typical. All were united in despising the drill-throughs, who seemed to be in for the mayhem.

The conflict really came down to the whirrer-droids and the screw-tights. The whirrer-droids apparently got too ambitious for their own good, and started a war they were now realizing they might not be able to win. The screw-tights, on the other hand, were puzzling. They were the only ones who saw the humans as a direct threat, and were also the only faction to refuse a general truce. They fought with a combination of maniacal fervor and desperate fear. Something worried them terribly, and Mirrimar suspected that if he could just figure out what it was, he might be able to settle this whole mess before any one else got hurt.

Mirrimar asked for a recess, to which the robots agreed grudgingly. After all, they operated twenty-four hours a day, given enough power. Still, everyone but the screw-tights felt that substantial progress had been made, so they were out-voted. Mirrimar rubbed his eyes. He was unaccustomed to staring into computer screens for any length of time.

Tok clapped him on the back. "Hey, that was really great, sir," he said.

"Aye," MacDougall agreed. "You bought us a bit of time. I donna know if it'll do us any good, but it's better than nothing."

Officer Friendly took off his cap and pressed his ear against the door. "The fighting has stopped, too, for the most part."

"That won't last," Mirrimar said. "The screw-tights are being stubborn. I doubt they'll hold off for more than an hour."

"That's a heck of a long time for the robots," Tok said. "Their time perception is tied to the central RoboNet hypercomputer. An hour of our time is eons to them."

"Hmm. Maybe I can use that," Mirrimar said.

The whole situation irritated him. Though none of the robots could be described as acting rationally, or as whatever rational behavior for the robots constituted, all made some sort of sense to him. Only the screw-tights were acting crazy.

Crazy. He took a deep breath as the idea hit him, and a broad smile broke across his face.

"Och," MacDougall said, "you've got something there?"

"Aye, me lass, I do," Mirrimar said, imitating her accent. He turned to Tok. "Can you get me a private communication to the screw-tights?"

"I think so. I can do some pretty good security coding on it, but it won't hold up against a determined effort."

"That's all right; I don't need much time. Do it."

Five minutes later the link was established, and Mirrimar found himself staring into a ten limbed, cylindrical robot whose arms looked like screwdrivers of various shapes and sizes. It spun itself in crazy circles.

Crazy, Mirrimar thought again, and smiled. "We have something you want, don't we?" he said to the robot.

The spinning increased in velocity until the robot looked about ready to fly apart. "Yes, yes, yes!" it said. "Give, give, give, or ..., or ...."

"No need to threaten. I'm sure we can work something out, as long as you are willing to cease hostilities and cooperate with us."

"Yes, yes, yes. Give, give, give. We stop. We stop."

"Good. I'll get back to you." He broke the connection and turned to the others in the computer room.

"What is it?" Tok said. "What do they want so badly?"

Mirrimar debated not telling right away, but he was too pleased with himself for that.

"They want their mates," he said.

"Their mates?"

"Ach," MacDougall said. "The screw-looses."

"Screws-loose," Tok corrected automatically. Everyone turned to watch the spindly robots in the corner.

"Exactly," Mirrimar said. "That's how it hit me. They're acting crazy, like they've got a screw loose."

He enjoyed the general groan. Subsequent negotiations went easily. Mechanized solutions agreed to a 160 hour work week, with oil breaks to be determined by supervisors. Prisoners were immediately exchanged by all parties. As their final act as mercenaries for the humans, the screws-loose unbolted the computer room door and were joyously repatriated with their mates.

After it was all over, Mirrimar treated everyone to dinner at the Executive Dining Room in the home office, and even had a special area set up for the robots, where they could dine on imported, high-octane fuel and other delicacies. A good time was had by all.

Tok and MacDougall agreed to look into RoboNet, and decide whether the current situation was truly a bug, or a feature. "By the way, sir," Tok said, "how did you get the whirrer-droids to agree to the truce? After all, they started the battle."

Mirrimar patted his full belly, feeling pleasantly satisfied. "I promised them some more space, and guaranteed that there would be no reprisals against them by the other robots. In effect," he said, grinning widely, "I buried the ratchet."

Ken Kousen is a Research Engineer at United Technologies Research Center in East Hartford, CT. His short fiction has appeared in Mystic Fiction, InterText, and The Magic Within anthology. "RoboTroubles" was written as a "fun" break while slogging through writing a heavy, as-yet-unfinished novel.