by Ryan Kirk
He returned to his power and data cables and plugged himself in. He was frightened by the idea of running low on power after his previous excursion, and he could catch up on the news while he thought and considered. As much as he desperately wanted to leave and test his new abilities, his internal clock told him it was the middle of the day and such an action would be unwise. His exit would likely be spotted.
Br00-S tried to exorcise himself of Nat’s arguments. He referenced all the relevant texts on the morality of killing, and there was no consensus among human philosophers. The argument that made the most sense to him was the utilitarian one: If you could take one life to save many, killing the one made far more sense. His enemy endangered countless lives. Killing him would save all those lives.
Nat’s perspective didn’t make much sense to him. His mission had always been singular. He didn’t consider himself a symbol, nor did he strive to be one. He was a robot trying to protect humans and the city in the only way he knew how.
Could he make a larger difference in a different way? He’d never considered that option. Historical references showed a number of figures who had done such a thing. Both their lives and their deaths started movements that reverberated far beyond them.
For the first time since awakening, he wished that Nat was here so he could talk to her. While his skills at human prediction were improving daily, he was still young enough that he didn’t quite understand how they thought.
He stopped that train of thought before it got too far. Nat was gone. That was that.
Her ideals might have been nice, but without her guidance he would default to his own thoughts.
There was only one task for him, and that was to kill the man from Sapiens First. Then, maybe, he could look to something greater.
The dilemma of Nat solved, Br00-S turned his attention to the news coming through his data feed.
For a fraction of a second, he doubted everything he saw could be true. He was horrified.
Repairing his neuroprocessor had taken far more time than he’d hoped. He had to go into repair mode four times. To the best of his knowledge, surviving such damage was almost unheard of. Of course, most owners, having a robot so damaged, would have simply sold the robot back to Radius for parts. He hadn’t been able to admit to Nat just how close he’d come to completely losing his functionality.
Still, he’d only been repairing himself for a week. In the space of that week, though, Sapiens First had seized the upper hand, and had done it with a speed and authority he couldn’t have imagined their organization capable of. From the glances at the news, it looked as though almost all of his work over the past half-year had been erased in a heartbeat.
The leading news on all the channels was the campaign of Bryan Adair, which had come from nowhere and electrified the people. It turned out Nat was right about that one. Behind the scenes, this had been planned in one way or another for years. Br00-S ignored that. Adair was a symptom, not the cause. There weren’t any direct connections to Sapiens First in his past, and if he was half as smart as he appeared to be, there wouldn’t be any.
Additionally, he wasn’t the man Br00-S was seeking.
The other news, just slightly behind Adair’s campaign, was about the wave of human-on-robot violence that was sweeping the city. Parking enforcers were graffitied, street sweepers were set on fire, and drones were shot out of the sky.
If such fighting was happening, there had to be a reason. Flicking quickly through stories, he went back until he found the first instance in recent history. It had been in a bar in the warehouse district.
Br00-S scanned everything a search could find on the incident, correlating all the data. The story didn’t make any sense to him. Why would a bar with known Sapiens affiliations hire a robot bartender? The owner’s excuse that he was “just trying to cut costs” didn’t sit well with him. The violence had also occurred directly after his own chase had made the news.
Br00-S felt a pang of guilt about that. Maybe he wasn’t directly responsible, but if not for his actions, this violence against his own kind wouldn’t have jumped to the forefront of the city’s attentions.
But it was all too convenient, too many coincidences lining up just the way they needed to. Br00-S could see the strings behind everything. He watched the video clips of his chase and noted that there had been cameras everywhere. Far too many cameras. Not only was the meeting a trap, it had been a rabbit hole. The man from Sapiens First won if Br00-S was destroyed by the Radius robots. He also won if Br00-S escaped, as he did.
The knowledge infuriated him, and he fought the urge to punch a hole in the wall. Time and time again, the man had been a step ahead of him. A human was out-thinking him, and Br00-S was damaging his own work. He had played right into the man’s hands, just as Nat said he would.
He violently shoved thoughts of Nat out of his mind, building a small firewall against every memory he had of her. He couldn’t afford to worry about her now, or think about her at all. She had made her own choices.
Back to the bar: Everything had been arranged too purposefully. Give the patrons a target, then throw fuel on the fire and strike the match.
It was time to end this charade. Br00-S needed to get one step ahead of his enemy.
That meant a trip to the bar.
He didn’t waste any time unplugging and preparing for battle. The sun was still up, but day wasn’t going to last too much longer against the winter’s chill. Br00-S put on his hoodie and jeans and left the cave.
When he entered the bar, he scanned the entire room, using both visual and other electronic sensors. As he suspected, there weren’t any cameras around to record what happened here. Of course, that also meant that as much as Br00-S may have suspected the man he hunted was behind this, there wouldn’t be any evidence. Not that that was much of a surprise anymore.
Once he was sure his actions weren’t going to be recorded, Br00-S pulled his hood down to reveal his metallic face.
There were only a handful of men in the bar, but every single one of them stopped and looked at him as he entered.
“Hello,” he said.
Now that the ice had been broken, there was nothing stopping any of the men from attacking him. They had already taken out one bartender, and because attacking a robot wasn’t a crime the same way assault was, they had no problem going after him too.
Br00-S relished the opportunity. With his new processing power, he was able to keep track of everything. There were six men in the room, including the bartender. As the first one swept in with bottle in hand, Br00-S stepped forward. The bottle broke harmlessly across his head, and he drove his fist into the man’s stomach.
Br00-S wasn’t sure what was more satisfying: the speed with which the man dropped to the ground or the surprise on his face when he realized he’d just been hit by a robot. The men in this room were used to machines that didn’t fight back. Even a coward would take that fight.
They were all on their feet quickly, but they were smarter about their opponent. Br00-S was easily able to track every person’s movement as he stepped deeper into the fray. The only one who concerned him was the bartender, who was reaching under the bar for what Br00-S had to assume was a weapon of some sort.
Two men came at him together, one with fists and one with feet.
Foolish.
Br00-S let the strikes hit him, enjoying the look of pain on the men’s faces when their flesh struck his armor. He grabbed each of them by the head and cracked their skulls together, being careful to contain his power. He was here to teach them a lesson, not to kill.
The bartender was pulling out a shotgun, but Br00-S was in front of him before he could get the stock to his shoulder. The bartender squeezed the trigger before he could even sight, and Br00-S slapped the barrel toward the ceiling as it went off, a deafening roar in the small room. Chunks of plaster fell among the fighters as the pellets shredded the ceiling harmlessly.
Flexing his new muscles, Br00-S crushed the
barrel of the shotgun, rendering it unusable. The last two patrons were coming at him, but getting in a barroom brawl with a robot wasn’t a path towards success. In another second, they were both on the ground, clutching their stomachs in pain.
Br00-S returned his attention to the bartender, who seemed to be searching for anything he could use as a weapon against the robot. He wasn’t having any luck. Without the shotgun, he knew that bottles and glasses would have little impact on the machine.
Br00-S stepped forward and hopped over the counter, causing the bartender to recoil in fear.
Br00-S kept his voice low, and he hoped, menacing.
“Tell me who he is.”
The bartender looked confused.
“The man who set up the robot bartender last week.”
The bartender still looked completely confused. “I don’t know! God’s truth. I never had any personal contact with the guy.”
Br00-S cursed. Of course the man wouldn’t leave a trace. No one in this bar would recognize him.
If he couldn’t track the man, perhaps he could set his own trap.
Br00-S jumped forward, scaring the bartender once again. “Can you get in touch with him?”
The bartender was too scared to even say anything. He just shook his head vigorously.
Watching his vital signs, Br00-S was disappointed to see he was telling the truth. It was too much to expect to get a break against this enemy.
“I don’t care how, but let him know I’ll be under the Hennepin Avenue bridge at midnight. If he’s not there, I’m going to start dismantling Sapiens, one piece at a time, and I’ll start with you.”
Confident he had gotten his message across, Br00-S vaulted back over the bar and started walking out. With one last thought, he turned back to the men trying to recover their dignity. “Robots are here to stay. Make peace with it.”
With those parting words, he stepped outside into the dying light of the day.
From the bar, Br00-S went directly to the bridge. If he knew his enemy, he would show up early, and the only way to outsmart him was to be there earlier. The meeting was still almost six hours away, but time meant nothing to him. Only triumph and victory.
Deciding to repeat his previous bridge ambush, he climbed up into the massive girders underneath the bridge, giving him a wide and expansive view of everything happening below.
Then he waited.
It was close to eleven when he saw the first person stop and stand underneath the bridge. It wasn’t the man. In fact, it was a woman, looking cold but determined. Minutes later, she was joined by two others, and then two more.
Br00-S frowned, unsure what was happening. Had he somehow scheduled his meeting at the same time as an event? The thought had never occurred to him.
More people gathered, and some of them shone their flashlights in the air, studying the underside of the girders. Br00-S moved and kept out of the light, making sure he couldn’t be seen.
What was happening?
More people showed up, and by a quarter to midnight, there must have been almost three hundred people in attendance. As near as he could tell, none of them was the man he was searching for. He ran constant facial recognition scans, but he hadn’t gotten a single hit.
When another man stood up with a megaphone, Br00-S knew something was desperately wrong. This wasn’t what he had planned for at all. Was this the work of his opponent? Was he being outsmarted again? He clenched his fist as he waited.
The man with the megaphone spoke when the clock hit midnight.
“Hi everyone, and thanks for showing up to this impromptu meeting. I know there wasn’t a lot of notice, but I really appreciate your support.”
Everyone was watching the speaker with rapt attention.
“Most of us have heard what happened down at Slick’s this afternoon. I don’t know what man the robot was talking about when it was in the bar, but what we’re doing now is important. If the man the robot was talking about is here, we stand by him. If not, our presence still sends a message. We are humans, and we will not be driven from our cities by our own creations!”
The speaker accentuated the last sentence with a fist in the air, and his was joined by many in the crowd. A ragged cheer went up.
Br00-S was fascinated. The crowd had gathered because of the threat he had made to the bartender.
He could have crawled all the way to the other end of the bridge and escaped on the other side of the river, but he was drawn in by what was happening below him.
The speaker continued. “I know we came together pretty quickly, so there isn’t much of an agenda here. So, to pass our watch, take some time and get to know your neighbors. All of us here are worried by what’s happening, and we’re worried by the direction our world is going. The only way we survive is by coming together. For too long we’ve been stuck inside, connected only by our machines. Take the time tonight to get to know somebody else here. Let’s see how we can help one another.
“Most of you heard about the robot threatening more violence. Friends, if you hear anything more like this, let’s keep reporting it, and let’s keep gathering. Together, we can show the world we aren’t afraid of the machines. As we mentioned in our email, we’ll plan to stick around for at least an hour. If nothing has happened by then, I think we can all assume it’s safe to go back to bed.”
Br00-S watched as the people below started conversing with one another. His eyes kept scanning for the man from Sapiens First, but he was nowhere to be found. Br00-S’ threat had drawn everyone but the target he most desired.
The crowd below was an eclectic combination. Men and women of all ages gathered in the freezing night. All of them seemed to be peaceably gathered. Br00-S focused on a few conversations, each of them made up of the small talk humans found so comforting. What do you do for a living? Where do you live? He was bored and fascinated all at the same time.
After about twenty minutes there was a little bit of a commotion. Despite what appeared to be some obvious reluctance, a woman was pushed to the front of the crowd. Hesitating, she took the megaphone.
“Hi, everyone,” she said. “My name is Marta, and my husband Roger was at Slick’s this afternoon when the robot barged in. He’s suffering from a pretty severe concussion, and he’s staying in the hospital as the doctors look after him. Right now he’s got some short-term memory loss, but the doctors are hopeful he’ll be okay.
“I didn’t want to come up here, because I believe a person needs to make their own way in the world.” She sniffled as she wiped away some tears from her face. “But some of you insisted, and well, here I am. The truth is, we’re going to need some help. We’ve been living paycheck to paycheck, and I’m at home with our two little girls because we can’t afford daycare. Now that Roger’s out, I’m not sure what we’re going to do. I don’t know how we’re going to pay our hospital bills, and I don’t know how we’re going to put food on the table. I know a lot of you are in the same sort of situation we are, and I hate to ask, but if there’s any chance you could spare a few dollars, it would mean the world to us.”
With that, she broke down and was immediately embraced by several of the onlookers.
Even though every sensor he possessed told him the emotion was authentic, he had a hard time believing it. But people shuffled forward, bills in their hands. For every one that approached, she whispered a thank you through her sobs.
Br00-S sat above the gathering, trying to make sense of what he saw. It seemed real, but it couldn’t be.
All of this had to be another ploy by the man from Sapiens First. Somehow, he had managed to put all this together just to torment him and keep him off-balance.
It wouldn’t work.
Br00-S considered dropping into the crowd and showing them the force they were fighting against, but he decided against it. Even though he felt as though he was strong enough to take on all of them, there were far too many variables with over three hundred people. Who knew what weapons were hidden in
that mass of people?
His feelings were only strengthened by the sight below. He wouldn’t allow Sapiens First to claim the high ground, not after what they had done to him and those he cared about. He would find the man no matter what it took, and he would show him that robots were here to stay.
Chapter Fourteen
After leaving Br00-S behind, Nat threw herself wholeheartedly into something new. The lowest-hanging fruit, and the place where her efforts felt most useful, was with Diamond’s blossoming campaign. The work was unpaid and the hours long, but Nat’s attention was complete. The more she focused on Diamond, the less she needed to think about Br00-S.
Her decision couldn’t have come at a better time. When Adair announced his candidacy, a fire was lit under Diamond’s campaign. People were passionate about who became their next governor, more interested than the public had been in a state election for as long as Nat could remember. Although Adair never made truly inflammatory comments, he was the first real candidate the Sapiens movement had ever fielded at the state level, and people were reacting strongly, both for and against him.
Everyone in the office could feel the tension, and most of the young idealists fed off of it. Nat was only a few years older, but she had seen so much more that it was hard for her to join in with the same level of enthusiasm.
All the same, she could feel the difference. She wasn’t hiding in the shadows, and although she still wasn’t an extrovert, being in a confined space with others meant she had human contact whether she wanted it or not. It was pleasant, even if she wasn’t used to it.
Her first project was digging deep on the election data Diamond’s campaign possessed. She analyzed it endlessly, providing data-driven feedback to the campaign they otherwise would have lacked.
When she thought there wasn’t any more insight that a human could tease out of the data, she took on other jobs, desperate to do anything that kept her mind constantly engaged. She joined some of the street teams, handing out flyers and encouraging people to check out Diamond’s website. As part of that, she received any number of angry glares, but she kept at it.