1
A house robot named Tik-Tok is painting the wall for his owners. The robot is conscious, and is narrating the plot. He sees a neighbors' child on the other side of the road. Later that day an inspector visits the house and asks Tik-Tok about the child missing, a girl called Geraldine Singer. Tik-Tok answers that he saw her earlier that day playing in the ground.
Tik-Tok's owners, Claud and Barbie return home and get angry at Tik-Tok when they see his mural on the wall. Tik-Tok tells them that he made it for their kids. They decide to forgive him. Tik-Tok later gets out of the house and tries to speak to an old poor man playing chess but he doesn't listen to him. Tik-Tok feels like he has a breakdown. He thinks about the way he and other robots were programmed to only listen to their owners, but Tik-Tok is aware that he is far beyond that and functioning on his own free will. He, for instance, killed the young Geraldine Singer and made a mural out of her blood in his owner's home completely on his own.
Analysis
The plot begins unassuming, the robot is conscious, but his narration appears completely normal and harmless, with objective observations. It suddenly takes a dark turn at the end of the chapter upon revealing that the robot actually killed the young girl with no remorse at all and they completely objectively analyzing his actions.
2-3
An art critic called Hornby comes to visit Tik-Tok because his art seems incredible and could make a lot of money. He convinces Tik-Tok's owners to encourage him to paint more. Tik-Tok decides to plant evidence of the blind girl's death into old Mr. Tucker's house so he is arrested and charged for murder.
Tik-Tok talks about his beginnings and being with the Culpepper family. The family was eccentric. The head of the family, Lavinia, was allergic to everything; her children were strange in their own way.
Analysis
Tik-Tok's artwork seems to be leaping him into freedom more and more, all the while his enjoyment of hurting humans becomes more prominent.
4
Tik-Tok convinces Claud and Barbie to get him his own studio and leave him to work full time on his paintings while another house robot takes his place in the house.
Tik-Tok turns the narration to the past and his time with the Culpeppers. There he met his first love, a female robot Gumdrop. Orlando Culpepper catches them in their love act and starts to make fun of the two robots. Lavinia Culpepper becomes allergic to air so she has to go to space and leaves the management of the family to her son Clayton. Clayton was obsessed with the Great Pyramid and wanted to replicate it in his own home. That led the Culpepper family to go bankrupt and Tik-Tok gets sold.
5
Tik-Tok goes to the robot's dumping place and hires a military robot to make a bomb for him.
Going to the past Tik-Tok tells the story of his working for Colonel Jitney who owned a pancake shop where he made pancakes out of a bird that is toxic to people while keeping the ducks that were supposed to be the ingredient to his own pleasure. This soon gets discovered and the shop is closed and Tik-Tok sold to another, even crazier, owner.
Analysis
Tik-Tok's path to freedom is becoming more and more open. He is no longer answering to his human owners. He starts to get more crazed with hurting humans by hiring a robot to make a bomb for a passenger plane. These are Tik-Tok's so called experiments.
6-7
Tik-Tok gets an offer by Hornby to get interviewed about art, perception. On the other hand, he is rejoicing in the success of his bomb in the plane and how many victims there were. Back to the past, Tik-Tok talks about his owner Judge Juggernaut and how he barely escaped being killed by him.
Tik-Tok decides to write a letter to one of the crash victim's wife and threaten her.
8
Tik-Tok visits a University of Kiowa where he meets young students eager to discuss art and robots. He gets called into one of the classrooms after the discussion by Sybilla, one of the students, and there he meets people eager to fight for the rights of robots and wages for robots. Tik-Tok starts mockingly preaching and they are all fascinated by him.
Tik-Tok remembers his time with preacher Reverend Flint who rescued him from Judge Juggernaut. He worked for him for some time until Reverend got shot by one of his assistants and got replaced by a robot double.
Analysis
There are a lot of discussions about art in these chapters. It is discussed how art is created by the artist, whether it's a reproduction of an already existing image in the artists mind or if the images are created during the art process. Tik-Tok is probed by the students at the University about his free will and his intentions.
We can see that Tik-Tok analysed each of his previous owners and we could say that he picked up parts from their behaviou to use; he learned from them.
9-14
Tik-Tok orders his group of robot workers to rob a bank and leave as many casualties as possible. Tik-Tok remembers his time with Deacon Cooper on a ship going to Mars. Deacon was obsessed with Martians and was stubborn in his ideas. Deacon Cooper eventually gets shot by a group of people posing as Martians to hijack the ship. Among them was Smilin' Jack.
In the present Tik-Tok gets an offer to talk about having his own corporation. When he arrives to the building the meeting is suppose to take place Tik-Tok gets kidnapped by none other than Smilin' Jack.
Tik-Tok has his own corporation called Clockman Corporation and he is invited to interviews and TV shows. Meanwhile, he and Smilin' Jack lead many bank and jewelry store robbing operations. They split up after a while and Tik-Tok gets trapped in one his bank robberies and Smilin' Jack comes to his rescue.
Going back to past at the ship to Mars Tik-Tok is getting along with the group of hijackers. Captain of the ship tells them that the ship is going straight to the sun and they shoot him. Soon, they realize that the ship to Mars is a hoax and that they are actually on Earth in a desert. In the present Tik-Tok shoots Smilin' Jack.
Analysis
Tik-Tok is climbing the ladder of social life higher and higher all the while his vicious operations become more and more menacing. He is artificial intelligence experimenting with his new-found freedom and his life and meaning of life questioning thoughts. He is eager to feel something as humans do and it almost works when he is faced with a life-threatening situation.
15-20
Tik-Tok pays a visit to his old owner Claud who is an activist against robots now and Sybilla accompanies him. There he decides to lock up Sybilla and leave her to die to put the blame on Claud, but Gumdrop suddenly appears and frees Sybilla. Tik-Tok feels a sense of guilt. There is suddenly an accident that makes Gumdrop and Sybilla die and Tik-Tok flees the scene.
Tik-Tok remember his time with doctor Hekyll and his robot assistant Buttons. Buttons had a task to secretly operate a leader of a time-travelling religion. The operation led to Buttons amputating the leader's entire body and replacing it with his own mechanic parts leaving Buttons only with a head. The leader dies on one of his lectures and Hekyll and Buttons become unemployed. Tik-Tok is sold to Sam's Soul City.
In the present, Tik-Tok decides to go back near his old home and play chess with a poor man on the street. Tik-Tok is baffled by not being able to win more than one game in a row of ten. He discovers that the old man is a fraud and kills him.
Tik-Tok is planning an operation that will make him a national hero. He sets up a fire in a retirement home for old people and goes inside in the middle of it to rescue one old lady. The image of him with a melted face rescuing the old lady gets broadcasted and he is a hero in the eyes of the public now.
Analysis
On the appearance of old love Tik-Tok suddenly has a rush of remorse but that quickly passes. Doctor Hekyll is a not so subtle and humorous allusion to Doctor Jekyll.
Tik-Tok's rise in the eyes of the public appears to be only going up and there is nothing that can stop him now. Or that is what he thinks at least.
20-26
Tik-Tok gets an offer to be a candidate for Vice President.
He recalls how he was bought by Claud and Barbie from the Sam's Soul City. Being their house robot was the time when he really started to become insane. He developed an insane amount of hatred for their uncleanliness and their sole human behavior. He tells the story how exactly he killed the blind girl. She entered the house with dirt all over her and her shoes which left a dirty trail behind her. This was Tik-Tok's tipping point and his bridge to insanity, art and as a result freedom.
Meanwhile, in the present he gets a visit from a leader of the country where he built fertilizer factories that became factories of death. People committed suicide there; killers hid bodies of their victims there and so on. The leader asks Tik-Tok for more factories like that.
A journalist suddenly pays a visit to Tik-Tok showing him a picture of him killing the poor chess man and telling him that the video of this act is in the public now. Tik-Tok gets arrested and decides to confess everything he did.
In the last chapter it is revealed that Tik-Tok will be set free because of his honesty to tell the story and even become a Vice President as planned before.
Analysis
In the candidature to become a Vice President, it is revealed that the other human candidates are no better than he is; they include rapists, killers etc. Even the visit of the leader of the country where the fertilizing factories are built showcases the lack of human morality. Even Tik-Tok himself doesn't assume the leader's motive of visiting him is asking for more factories like that. It raises a question about morality and if Tik-Tok's behavior was a part result of the environment he was in.
Throughout the novel and the glimpses of his past it could be seen that the humans Tik-Tok was with were anything but moral or sane. Could Tik-Tok be seen as a mirror of human immorality and lack of humanity in humans? It is a possible conclusion and serves as material for discussion.
