when the first mechanical pugilist was made, the fight commission made a number of demands. first, through each robot's sight-mechanism, it was established that each machine should be equipped with cameras by which they would record the activity of their opponent in the ring. if a foul was committed which had escaped the judges, the proof would thereby be recorded on the camera-tapes, which could easily be confiscated by the fight commission.
secondly, there was a co-ordination system in each machine which could not be slackened without a noticeable difference in the conduct of the fighter, thus acting as a safeguard against the trainer-owner's voluntarily slowing their fighters down for illegal purposes. however, there were ways to slow a pug down. there were circuit-shorting devices, reflex-sabotaging devices, analysis-pattern disturbances, muscle-flexibility tensions—all of which cut down the fighter's efficiency to some degree. the trick, of course, was to do so without exposure, since all fighters were examined moments before they entered the ring, and were subject to further investigation if the judges deemed a fight suspiciously under expectation-level.
the machines then were constructed, so that, in essence, they were totally 'honest', and every part in them was recorded in a master plan, filed with the fight commission, so that nothing could be added, and certainly, nothing be subtracted from them, since their balance depended completely on very essential parts.
they were also constructed so that they had their weakness-points in exactly the same places men had theirs. if a machine struck hard enough and exactly enough on the point of its opponent's jaw, it would jar wires and electrical contacts badly enough to stop its operational function—thus the "knockout".
to all intents and purposes the fighting machine was constructed as much along human lines as was possible, even to the point of corruptibility. they all had a desire to be great fighting machines, and to go down in the annals of fight history. they were, each and every one, made for the purpose of practicing a deadly, brutal art by which men could sublimate the brutality that nested like a sleeping tiger in their own persons. provision had even been made for the sight of flowing blood. the tough rubber skin that made the robots appear human contained the red oil that lubricated the steel "innards", and if the rubber skin split the more the bloodthirsty members of the audience were satisfied.
what charlie jingle did, when he operated on the tanker, was what might be called, in human terms, "over-conditioning" him. he tightened and sped his reflexes, shortened the length of his wires so that electrical responses had shorter distances to travel, sped up his analysis-pattern, hyper-toned his muscle-flexibility, and generally made him a nervous wreck.
then, as a final touch, he ran the tapes he had promised to run, striving to bring the truth to the tanker.
