Slaves to the Metal Horde by Stephen Marlowe

63-17-B was twenty years old, but a trip to the repair bays every time he returned to New York City kept his beryl-steel body gleaming as if it had rolled but yesterday from the assembly lines. Now 63-17-B could sense a stiffness in the second joint of his left leg and suspected corrosion. He was looking forward with keen anticipation to the time, in the near future, when he would stretch out in the repair bay and have his worn parts exchanged.

That, however, was not on his primary level of thought. While not unique with 63-17-B, the secondary level was not universal among the robots, for the idea of individual sentience had crept into the original plans only accidentally. On his primary level of thought, 63-17-B was in closer rapport with Central Intelligence than the three-hundred robots stretched out in a long, sun-reflecting line behind him. Like Central Intelligence itself, and unlike the few humans who thought of such things, 63-17-B believed that matter and energy are not merely components of one another but are actually the same thing. Thus he explained his greater primary level of thought by saying that the energy-matter bridge connecting him with Central Intelligence, invisible but measurable in quanta as was his body, was stronger than most. On the social level, this gave 63-17-B leadership of the three-hundred.