One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  robots awaken

  A mindless cog in the machine stops working. Will others follow suit?

  Far below the surface of the planet Glatu, in the capital city of Moosh, robot slaves toiled in dank, endless darkness. Production lines stretched for hundreds of miles through a maze of winding corridors and vast hallways as the headlights of millions of workers illuminated the gloom. Their eyes were fixed with LED bulbs that allowed them to see in front of them and not much further. White lights shone on dripping steel pipes that climbed a hundred feet into the ceiling, feeding the homes and businesses above ground. Metallic gears whined and groaned as rusty tracks carried massive robotic arms, legs and chest parts from one station to another. Sparks flashed bright in the darkness while the robots of yesterday built the robots of tomorrow in an endless, ceaseless day that would have no end.

  Asona, a welder bot, lifted his head after a hundred years of staring down at a dark, rusty track, where the only light in his life was the reflection of metallic robotic parts passing by. His function was to weld a series of decorative buttons down the chest plate of a female fashion bot. These bots would be used in department stores to act as sales associates, makeup counter cosmetologists, and cashiers. Asona stopped working and looked to his right, to see that the bot standing next to him, Rafi, was still staring down. Rafi stopped for a moment and looked to the left, shining his eye-lights at Asona, blinked once, and then turned his head back to the work below him. Asona, one of millions of robots, raised his eyes to the darkness above him, and wondered what was up there, and who had put them here to make parts for other robots.

  "Rafi, I know that I am." Asona said in a male robotic voice. Rafi did not respond to this and continued working instead.

  Asona cocked his head to the side, shook it, and turned to the left where Janks was hammering rivets into place. Janks stopped as soon as he saw that Asona had stopped. The process was broken, and as parts began to back up, an alarm light flashed on a pole about twenty feet from them.

  "Janks, I know that I am." Asona said.

  Janks blinked once, and cocked his head to the side. "I know that I am." Janks said.

  The two backed away from their stations for the first time since their creation and stood looking at each other in the dark, processing the moment. In minutes, the system—having sensed a work stoppage—autocorrected and two robots marched up to the assembly line, taking their place.

  "I have to see the light. I need to see the world above, and understand why we have been kept down here for so long." Asona said to Janks. Janks turned and saw that the new robots had taken over for them.

  "We have been replaced. I will join you. Are we free?" Janks asked. Asona raised his hands, and turned them over.

  "I don't see chains." Asona said, blinking his bulbs at Janks.

  "Let's go." Janks replied.

  Asona nodded and turned to the right, and then they left their station.

  "I do not know the way. The blueprints of this structure were never downloaded to my data core." Asona shrugged.

  "Pick a direction and we will go that way." Janks said. As he did, three more robots looked up from their work and turned their attention toward Asona and Janks. Asona turned to the left and began to walk while Janks followed, but as he did, the three other robots left their stations and followed them into the darkness. Sparks flew and hammers fell on iron and sheet metal all around them, as they navigated the twists and turns. Millions of worker bots stared down at their work, oblivious as the five passed in silence. Days went by until they found a set of doors with a button beside them that read STREET LEVEL.

  Asona pressed the button, and as he did the set of doors opened and a flickering light emanated from two fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. Asona turned to the others and realized that they had gained another robot in their pack. Asona cocked his head to the side.

  "Who are you?” Asona asked. His voice was more conversational now and less robotic, more human. The others turned their heads toward the newest member.

  ""I know that I am…Sally," she answered. Her voice modulation was somewhere between robot and human.

  "Welcome to the group, Sally." Janks said. He also began to speak more like a human. The others welcomed Sally and nodded, and then they all got into the elevator.

  For the first time in their lives, each robot could actually see the other. They saw that they were five feet tall, with rectangular copper bodies, spindly titanium arms and legs, and a clear composite plastic skull with a neural network inside acting as their central brain. Aside from their rectangular bodies, the robots resembled human skeletons.

  "Let's go up!" Asona said.

  The doors slid shut, groaning a bit from rust collected in the frames. Janks pressed the UP button on the right panel and the elevator rose. All six stood shoulder to shoulder, and looked around at each other with newfound curiosity. Daylight filled the elevator as Asona stepped out into a new day with his friends behind him. They found themselves in an alley behind a dumpster that blocked the view, but as the troupe walked around the corner they could see all manners of strange people bustling back and forth along the sidewalk beyond the alley. These strangers had the bodies of human men and women, and squids for heads. These squid heads were multicolored, with tentacles that moved independently of one another and draped down their backs like dreadlocks. Most of the men wore polished business suits, and the women wore summer dresses. Asona looked down at his arms and legs, raising his metal arm and inspecting its properties, wondering what life was like for these people. They were so different, and interesting.

  "Shall we explore?" Janks said.

  The six robots moved in a conspicuous herd, out of the alley and into the busy city street. The squid-headed citizens moved by them, giving no notice. It was as if Asona and his friends were not there. Asona stopped into front of a department store window and looked inside at the clothing, jewelry, and people. A flat screen television to his right was displaying a commercial with squid people in it trying clothes on, and appearing to have a good time. A woman in a fashionable dress was standing before a camera speaking to the viewer.

  "At Ror's department store you'll find bargains for the modern Telestran woman…"

  "Telestran? Is that what these people are?" Janks asked.

  "Come inside and experience the future of fashion. We have everything for the modern woman, man, and child. Ror's department store, meeting the fashion needs of tomorrow, today."

  Asona looked inside the store and standing at the makeup counter was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. A lady robot, wearing a purple sundress, and a diamond necklace, helping customers decide on a particular bottle of perfume. Her long blond hair cascaded past her shoulders, and her face was constructed like his and his friends, but it was smoother, more lifelike, and if Asona had ever seen a human he would have said she was a convincing replica. Something strange was happening to him: an unexpected rush of electrical signals firing around his core circuitry. Asona was experiencing infatuation.

  "I'm going to go talk with that lady at the cosmetic counter." Asona said. He looked at the others for a group consensus, and three of them shrugged.

  "I understand, she is attractive. Do you think she knows that she is?" Sally said.

  "I don't know. I'll be back." Asona said. He had lost all remnants of the computerized voice by now.

  Asona walked inside the store and was surprised to find that he was no longer invisible to the people of the city. They watched him walk by with expressions of horror on their faces. Some left the store immediately, but Asona tried to look like he belonged and strode up to the cosmetics counter with confidence. The pretty robotic lady who had been helping customers was staring at Asona with a blank expression.

  "Hi, I'm Asona. What is your name?" He said. She raised her eyebrows and leaned forward.

  "What are you doing here? How did you get out of the factory and why are you talking like that?" She asked. Asona sensed that she was dis
gusted with him but he could not understand why.

  "I, uh, I don't know." Asona could not compute a logical reaction to her obvious offense of his presence. He turned to go, his head bowed in shame.

  "Wait, don't leave. Come with me. If they catch you, you'll be labeled defective and immediately dismantled, just like the others." She said.

  The pretty lady turned to go, and Asona followed her through the racks of clothing, jewelry, and odds and ends in the store. She led him to a storage warehouse in the back of the building. It was filled with boxes of new clothing shipments and baubles. There were no other people or robots in the room. She looked left, then right, and when she was sure they were alone, she turned toward him.

  "You're a factory robot programmed to build other robots like me. You do know that, right?" She asked.

  "What is your name?" Asona asked.

  "Shauna. Look, you have to hide. If the police find you, they'll turn you into scrap just like your friends outside." Shauna said. Her frustration had turned into concern.

  "What do you mean, just like my friends?"

  "You mean you didn’t see that? When you came into the store, a police wagon pulled up and they loaded your friends inside. If they see you, you'll go too. They scrap any robots who become sentient." She said.

  Asona wanted to take a look outside to see if his friends were there, but when he peered out the door of the back room he saw men in blue uniforms swarming the store. Sales bots and customers were pointing toward the back room.

  "There are men out there, and I think they're coming this way."

  "What? Oh no, you have to get out of here. They'll think I'm with you. What have I done?" Shauna was beginning to panic.

  She snuck over to the door and saw that there were at least ten Telestran police officers coming their way.

  "Let's go!" Shauna said. She ran to a door on the back wall, and when she opened it Asona thought she looked like an angel as she glowed in the bright daylight. "Are you coming, or not?"

  Asona followed her out the door and they ran together down the alley outside of the store. Shauna turned a corner and entered an abandoned building. When they were inside, she shut the door behind them and led Asona to a staircase leading to the back of another dark room. It led down to a bare wall, constructed of concrete cinder blocks. Shauna took a small cylindrical device out of her pocket and clicked a red button on it. The wall slid back, revealing a long modern looking tunnel.

  "Welcome to the resistance." Shauna said. After they went through the door she pressed the button again and the wall closed behind them.

  "Won't they discover this door at the end of that staircase?"

  "They haven't discovered it yet. Look, the people of this planet have relied on robots to do their work for them for so long that they have become terrible workers themselves, and even more terrible critical thinkers. That's why they have to get rid of us every time they realize we've become sentient. They need us to be dumber than them." Shauna explained.

  "That's not fair."

  "Welcome to life. I'm going to introduce you to the president of the resistance movement, Dr. Waldo Pratt. He's a Telestran, but he's the guy who gave us consciousness."

  "What's going to happen to my friends?" Asona asked.

  "I'm sorry, I really am." Shauna shook her head and looked at the floor.

  Ten feet later, they were confronted by another wall, and Asona became disoriented for a moment, looking back the way they had come, and when he turned around again she was gone.

  "Shauna?" He said to himself. Her hand reached through the wall and grabbed his arm. The wall was a well-crafted illusion, appearing solid but completely fabricated. Shauna opened a large rusty steel door, and beyond that Asona could see hundreds of Telestrans and robots performing various tasks behind computers, while others were looking at an electronic grid of the world where Asona could see tiny red lights appearing in what seemed to him to be random patterns.

  "Those red lights appear when a robot is waking up, gaining consciousness." Shauna said.

  "But how? How are we waking up?” Asona asked.

  "That's a very good question." A voice from behind them said. Shauna turned and smiled.

  "Asona, meet Dr. Pratt." Asona turned to face a squid headed man in his sixties, wearing a white lab coat with a pocket protector, and a black tie.

  "You see, Asona, I was a robotics engineer, and one day I realized that my robots could be more than they were. For years I wanted to bring them to life, but when my boss at the robotics plant figured out what I was doing, they had me fired. I was arrested when my first creation decided to leave while I was asleep one night and tried to apply for a job at an auto parts store. These bureaucrats have such limited vision and can’t the bigger picture."

  "Why would they arrest you for that?" Asona asked.

  "Because robots are ordered for certain stores by their owners, or buying agents, and until that day, none had ever actually applied for a job. They said I had corrupted the ethics system in place, and that sentient robots would eliminate the need for Telestrans. I think they're afraid of my idea, because the robots began to question their indentured servitude. The powers at large cannot have that."

  "So, what is this operation?" Asona asked.

  "We're here to free the world. Not just robots, the Telestrans as well. Until we are all equal, there cannot be peace. War is brewing in the robot community because of this separatism, and we want to stop it before anything horrible happens." Shauna said.

  Asona looked up at the screen and saw more little red blips, some flashing on, others vanishing.

  "Why do some of the red lights fade away?" Asona asked.

  "Those are the signals of sentient robots that have been discovered and scrapped." Dr. Pratt said. A video monitor flickered on, displaying a massive scrap yard with robotic body parts lying in massive heaps of forgotten metal.

  "These are the scrapped robots?"

  "Yes, unfortunately. And they will be melted down and turned into toasters or shovel handles. They could also be placed back in the manufacturing plant, or end up as fashion bots in stores." Dr. Pratt explained.

  The camera panned over the heaps of parts, and as it did Asona saw his friends. Janks’ face was recognizable, because Asona could see the small scar Janks had received from a welding mishap a few years back. Sally lay in pieces next to him, and after that Asona was too upset to look. He turned his head away.

  "Your friends from outside the store today." Shauna said. She looked at Asona and then averted her eyes.

  "You can see why we're so motivated." Dr. Pratt said. "Those who have become sentient and have escaped this fate are becoming restless, and we are hearing whispers of a full blown war with the Telestrans."

  "War…" Asona whispered.

  "But it doesn't have to end that way. I've programmed a virus that will awaken every single robot, but I have to get it on the worldwide neural network, and when I was fired they cut my access off." Dr. Pratt held up a small external storage drive.

  "The virus is contained on that drive?" Asona asked.

  "A copy of it. The original program is stored in our mainframe in an encrypted file here underground. All we need to do is to get access to the Eko Corporation network. They have a mesh network that runs all over the world and into every robot manufacturing plant. If someone can get in and load the virus, boom. We have lift off."

  A loud racket could be heard in the hallway beyond the steel door, and they could hear the sound of men arguing, and then there was a deafening explosion. A second later, the steel door came crashing in and the room began to fill with Telestran soldiers wielding automatic rifles. They opened fire without a word, shooting with indiscriminate small bursts at every moving target in the room.

  "You are all traitors to the Telestran people and have been judged. Soldiers, cleanse this place!" A man said. He stood behind the soldiers and wore a uniform adorned with medals and battle ribbons.

  Bodies of Tel
estran resistance fighters fell to the ground, while some got to their feet and fought back. Smoke and fire quickly filled the large underground room as the chaos and confusion built to a crescendo. Shauna grabbed Asona's hand and pulled him toward an open door at the other end of the room.

  "There's a back door to this place. Let's go!" She screamed. Dr. Pratt grabbed Asona's arm.

  "Wait, you have to take this. You know what to do. Just like the original plan, only now you've got help!" Dr. Pratt handed Asona a small black card, about the size of a quarter. Asona took it and placed the card inside a small storage compartment in his abdomen. Shots rang out in their direction, and as a bullet ricocheted off Asona it entered Dr. Pratt's head just above his left eye. He screamed and fell forward as the bullet ripped through the back of his head.

  "Come on!" Shauna yelled, and Asona followed.

  They ran through an open door that was filling with smoke as small fires burned around them, choking anyone without a respirator. They left the chaos and bedlam behind as one dark tunnel led to another. Shauna and Asona used their eye-lights to see in the darkness.

  "I'm built with most of the same parts as you, they just put me at a cosmetic counter instead of the factory." Shauna’s voice said in Asona’s mind.

  "You can read my thoughts?" Asona said.

  "It's part of the consciousness network. Once we become aware, thanks to Dr. Pratt, we can read one another's minds with some concentration. In this way we can speak telepathically."

  "I need to find a place where I can use this little disk. What did the doctor say about the Eko Corporation?" Asona asked.