Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. [Illustration: "_After all--aren't we genuine 'made-in-Americans'?_"] ROBOTS of the WORLD! ARISE! By Mari Wolf _What would you do if your best robots--children of your own brain--walked up and said "We want union scale"?_ * * * * * The telephone wouldn't stop ringing. Over and over it buzzed into my sleep-fogged brain, and I couldn't shut it out. Finally, in self-defense I woke up, my hand groping for the receiver. "Hello. Who is it?" "It's me, Don. Jack Anderson, over at the factory. Can you come down right away?" His voice was breathless, as if he'd been running hard. "What's the matter now?" Why, I wondered, couldn't the plant get along one morning without me? Seven o'clock--what a time to get up. Especially when I hadn't been to bed until four. "We got grief," Jack moaned. "None of the robots showed up, that's what! Three hundred androids on special assembly this week--and not one of them here!" By then I was awake, all right. With a government contract due on Saturday we needed a full shift. The Army wouldn't wait for its uranium; it wouldn't take excuses. But if something had happened to the androids.... "Have you called Control yet?" "Yeah. But they don't know what's happened. They don't know where the androids are. Nobody does. Three hundred Grade A, lead-shielded pile workers--missing!" "I'll be right down." I hung up on Jack and looked around for my clothes. Funny, they weren't laid out on the bed as usual. It wasn't a bit like Rob O to be careless, either. He had always been an ideal valet, the best household model I'd ever owned. "Rob!" I called, but he didn't answer. By rummaging through the closet I found a clean shirt and a pair of pants. I had to give up on the socks; apparently they were tucked away in the back of some drawer. As for where Rob kept the rest of my clothes, I'd never bothered to ask. He had his own housekeeping system and had always worked very well without human interference. That's the best thing about these new household robots, I thought. They're efficient, hard-working, trustworthy-- Trustworthy? Rob O was certainly not on duty. I pulled a shoe on over my bare foot and scowled. Rob was gone. And the androids at the factory were gone too....