Downfail_A Dystopian Robot Rebellion Adventure

by George Donnelly

  A chill wind blew in the sub-level. He tightened the scarf around his neck and pulled his winter hat lower, over his ears. He sneezed, then sneezed again.

  Upstairs, he tapped on the flimsy front door of his apartment and entered. Candy stood in the living room in see-through purple lingerie. Her pert, artificial breasts peeked through the sheer material. The top ended just at the top of her legs. She wore nothing else.

  Ian stopped hard. The old bag still looked alright. But what was she doing dressed like this. The hairs stood up on his arms and the nerves in his legs tingled.

  Candy stopped and stared at him, her eyes nonchalant but her body tense.

  “Is that how you dress in front of the kids now?” Ian asked.

  “Jack is in bed,” she said.

  “Where’s my daughter?”

  “Out.”

  “Where?” Ian demanded.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  I’m gone a week and already this.

  “Aren’t you going to ask about Michael, too? Or is he a lost case to you?” Candy asked.

  Ian said nothing and made for Jack’s room instead. Before he turned the corner to enter the boy’s room, he heard a voice. He reached the entrance, and stopped.

  A soft light illuminated the boy. Jack was in bed, a smile on his face.

  Larry sat next to him in his underwear, reading the boy a story.

  Ian stood, dumb, and watched, unable to process it. His boy. Larry reading to him. Larry in his underwear. His wife practically naked. What did I interrupt?

  “Daddy!” Jack jumped out of bed and ran to hug him.

  Ian picked him up and hugged him, the boy’s long legs dangling almost to the floor. “Whatcha been up to, kiddo?”

  “Unc—” The boy paused. “Larry was reading me Where the Wild Things Are.”

  “Good choice, Larry,” Ian said without looking at him.

  “Ian—” Larry started.

  Ian held a hand out to silence the tighty-whiteyed invader.

  “You should come down and visit me sometime. I’ve been working on my robot.”

  “Is it ready yet?” Jack asked.

  “It’s a big job.”

  “How much longer will it take?”

  “It’ll go faster if you visit me every day!” He smiled and set Jack down. “You should get to bed now, kiddo.”

  “Aw, Dad, but we have to save the world! Just one game!”

  “Let’s do that tomorrow after school. You come down and get me,” Ian said. His mind wandered to Larry. And who was Stacy with? He brooded on all the things that could go wrong for Stacy: mistreatment and emotional hurt, staying out all night and screwing school up further, rape, pregnancy, sex slavery, never seeing her again. His forehead erupted in sweat and he felt the sudden urge to run out of there and call the girl. After great effort, he stopped himself.

  “Dad?” Jack was still in his arms.

  Ian set him down.

  “I love you, Dad. Did you hear me?”

  Ian smiled and the panic in him eased a tiny bit. “I love you too, buddy. Let me tuck you in.” He shot a glare at Larry that, he hoped, would say everything he felt: get the hell away from the only child I have left!

  And put some freaking pants on!

  Larry hustled out of there and into the master bedroom. He closed the door behind him.

  Ian tucked the boy in, a vision of Larry with Candy, Candy with Larry constantly intruding into his mind.

  He soon found himself in the living room. Candy sat on the couch. “It’s been going on awhile, has it? Not something new?” he asked her. He looked at the floor, his back half-turned to her. He hurt but he also felt disgust.

  “Don’t tell me you’re surprised?” she asked.

  Ian’s lip curled. Of course I’m surprised! There was a lot he wanted to say but one thought in particular jumped to the top of his mind. He knew he should stop it. It wouldn’t help. But it needed to be said. “You whore. Twenty years. I’ve taken great care of you. I gave you everything.”

  She put one foot under her leg and dangled the other one off the edge of the couch. Her legs weren’t young anymore but they were still smooth and well-shaped.

  “And for Larry? I gave you more credit than that.”

  She pressed her lips together and said nothing. She looked around the room then yawned. Still the foot dangled and shook from side to side.

  She’s over me. Doesn’t care about my hurt. That’s what she wants me to think, at least. I’m not wanted here. I’ve been freaking replaced! Jack, though, he I can’t abandon.

  Ian plodded out of the apartment, closing the door gently behind him. Once at his workstation again, he put a full pot to heat for near-coffee and prepared to spend his last few dollars on off-the-shelf parts. It was time to build a prototype. This would be an all-nighter.

  Then his energy collapsed. I can’t do this. Upstairs, right now, his best friend was laying his wife of twenty years. His kids didn’t need him. And he lived in a frigid basement closet. Who was he to invent something useful? He couldn’t hold a job or keep a family. He laid his head down on the icy metal desk and closed his eyes to shut out his inadequacy, to go anywhere but here. To be anyone, but Ian Blake, Common Failure.

  5

  “Given up yet, Dad?”

  The words bounced around in Ian’s unconscious brain. He jerked his head up off the frigid glass top of his desk and looked at the screen in front of him. A confused jumble of incoherent thoughts jockeyed for position in his mind. His eyes unfocused and he tried to remember where he was and what he was doing here. An icy breeze hit his neck and he shivered.

  “Dad?” Jack asked.

  Ian turned. “Oh, hey,” he mumbled. “What are you doing down here?”

  Jack shrugged. “Can I sit in the hammock?”

  “Gotta be careful. It’s easy to fall out.” Ian learned that lesson the hard way the week before. He climbed up on the contraption without looking, lost his balance and it rotated around, fast. His head quickly ended up where his feet should have been: slamming into the rough concrete floor. Will I ever sleep in a bed again? Or will I always lay down to sleep, one eye open and worrying about falling to the unforgiving floor below?

  Jack eased himself up into the hammock in a sitting position perpendicular to the length of the thin hanging bed. He pushed off the wall behind him and swung, forwards and backwards. The tips of his shoes tapped Ian on the back of his neck.

  Ian let it go twice but the third time was the last. “Can you not swing in that? There’s not enough room and you’re kicking me in the head.”

  Jack stopped pushing and gradually slowed to a halt.

  “How’s school?” Ian asked.

  “Eh,” Jack said.

  “How are Stacy and Michael?”

  “Never around,” Jack answered.

  “What are they doing?”

  Jack shrugged. “Wanna play some save the world?”

  “Later. Definitely.”

  Jack’s head sagged forward.

  “I finished a prototype,” Ian said. Pride rose within him and he suppressed a strong desire to burst out laughing. I really did it. I think. Or was it a dream? He scraped his chair across the floor a half-meter to the box next to his desk. It was a simple, dusty plastic box, the same kind used to ship goods everywhere - the kinds of good Ian could no longer afford, the same kinds of goods Candy wanted so badly that she shacked up with Larry. Yeah, those goods. The ones he gave up to pursue this crazy dream.

  He pulled the upside down box off and there it was. It really existed. He took a swig of an icy near-coffee leftover from last night and with a grimy pair of splintering chopsticks he took a greedy pair of mouthfuls of ramen noodles. They were cold, too. He shivered but gulped down the noxious, if nutritious, concoction nonetheless.

  “Stacy has a boyfriend,” Jack said.

  Ian gritted his teeth. “Am I going to like him?”

  “He’s a drug dealer.”

&nbs
p; Ian collapsed into himself a little. “Mom have anything to say about this?”

  “She’s out with Larry all the time.”

  Ian let out a sigh. “Well, what do you think of my robot?”

  Jack let out a scream and jumped off the hammock. He stood still and watched the wall.

  Ian turned and spotted it. The careless dolts in the boiler room were proving their wives right. They left their coffee cups, beer bottles and burrito wrappers where they fell. They didn’t clean their clothes or their floors. Now they were reproducing, the dirty little buggers.

  He took his sneaker off his foot, lunged and slammed it against the wall where the cockroach waited. He held his shoe against the wall, pushing hard, waiting to hear the telltale crack of its carapace, but nothing. Damned shoe is too soft to kill these super-roaches.

  He removed the shoe and it fell to the ground. It was only stunned. He grabbed his ramen bowl, scooped up its twitching body and carried it around the corner to the boiler room trash pile.

  To live in a boiler room carries no shame. But to live like a pig in a boiler room… Ian curled his upper lip in disgust. He dropped the ramen cup on the top of the pile and returned to his box. How much longer will this go on?

  Back in his office, Jack studied the robot. About one and a half meters tall, it looked like an undernourished Mexican mom: round in the middle, short arms, short legs and a perfectly round, expressionless face.

  “The arms extend,” Ian said from the doorway, “and there are three elbows.”

  “Three elbows! Three funny bones, too?” Jack turned and eyed his dad, a mischievous smile on his face. Jack studied the robot further and his father studied him. “It’s kind of short.”

  “The legs extend to fit whatever surface you need it to work at. It can bend over, too.”

  Yeah, Mom likes to do that.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” Jack said. “What does it do?”

  “It’s a domestic robot. It does everything women like Mom don’t want to do. It’ll make your bed for you and even prepare hot cocoa.”

  “What’s hot cocoa?” Jack asked.

  “Hot chocolate.”

  Jack turned around, his face a question mark. “But, chocolate melts.”

  “Doesn’t mom give you hot chocolate sometimes? We must have had it at Christmas or something?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Well, we have to remedy this! Let’s take it upstairs and get you some right now!” Ian grabbed the robot and carried it under his arm. He locked the storage box door behind them and hit the elevator up button.

  “Isn’t it going to be hard, you know, carrying it everywhere?” Jack asked.

  Ian laughed, just a little too loudly. It’s the isolation. I’ve been alone too long. “It’ll walk. Don’t worry. Just keep in mind that it’s a prototype. It’ll do the job but it won’t be pretty or perfect.”

  Upstairs, the apartment had a new door. Ian marveled at it. Jack produced a key and carefully opened it.

  “New,” Ian said.

  “Uncle Larry,” Jack said.

  Ian stood in the doorway, examining the intricate pattern of inlaid rectangles in the door. It had three locks, and they looked solid. He felt his pants sliding down his hips. He grabbed them and cinched up his belt another notch. Why didn’t we get a new door before?

  The living room was all wrong. There was an L-shaped, black leather couch in the far corner, a giant screen against the wall opposite the longer side of the couch and, in the middle of the room, a long, thin coffee table with tall, white flowers in a crystal vase.

  “Wrong apartment, buddy. Come on.” Ian stepped into the hallway and searched for apartment numbers on the doors.

  Jack turned and smiled.

  Ian returned to the doorway and paused. “No. Larry?”

  Jack nodded, a look of pained happiness on his face. “He bought me some new clothes, too.”

  Ian walked into his home and closed the door behind him. It didn’t feel like home anymore. It was his, but it wasn’t. It was surreal. No, it was wrong. He wanted to be angry, but he felt relief to have escaped his concrete box, if only for a little while.

  He sat down on the black, leather couch and set the robot on the floor. The leather was cool, supple, so smooth. The cushions beckoned him in deeper and he reclined. After so long in that cold concrete box, this was decadent. He closed his eyes and let himself sink deeper into the ample cushioning.

  “Dad!” Jack said. “I thought you were going to show me your robot.”

  “Of course,” Ian whispered. He forced himself up. His lower back snapped back into place and his neck cracked when he twisted it from side to side. That was good. I needed that. But too much is dangerous. Too much and I might not make it back. “Did you make your bed yet today?”

  Jack looked at him sheepishly. They headed for the bedroom. The bed was indeed a bit of a mess, with the pillow in the middle, the sheet and blanket pushed down towards the bottom.

  “Are you brushing your teeth?” Jack asked.

  Jack’s face went blank and he shrugged.

  “Three times a day, kiddo. Growing new teeth is a pain in the neck - literally.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Ian put the robot on the floor and turned it on. Its eyes flickered red and the sound of tiny motors whirred. Its legs and arms extended and its head rotated from side to side. “It’s performing a self-test,” Ian said.

  “Did you program it to do that or did it figure it out on its own?” Jack asked.

  “I did that.”

  “Ready,” the robot said.

  “What’s it called?” Jack asked.

  “Robot, make the bed.”

  Jack put his hand to his chin. “What about Maria? Can we call it Maria?”

  The robot stood unmoving, observing the scene.

  “It’s broken,” Jack said. He turned his back on it and sat down on his bed.

  “Jack! Get off the bed! It can’t make the bed with you on it.”

  Jack jumped up and shot a glance at his father. His eyebrows formed a sharp V over his eyes and his mouth was a deep frown. “Geez, you don’t have to be a jerk.” He stormed out of the room.

  Ian ran after him. He took two steps and his head went light. A ringing started in his ears and he lost his balance. What the hell is wrong with me! He stopped to catch his breath. “Jack, I’m sorry. Please. Come back. It’s just…”

  “I feel like you’re not even my dad anymore!” Jack yelled from across the apartment. “You never visit me. You never play with me. You don’t even know what happened to me!”

  Behind him, the whirs and squeaks of the robot meant that it was still working. If it’s doing something, then that’s something. He took a deep breath and gathered his strength. “I’m working on the robot. You told me I should do this, you know. I’m following my dream. And I’m not just doing it—”

  “Shut up! It’s a lie. You hate me, I know it. You don’t love me, that’s why you left.”

  Choose your words carefully, Ian. “This is between your mother and I. This has nothing to do with you. If anything, this is my fault. It has nothing to do with you.”

  Jack was silent.

  “I love you, Jack. Please come on back.” Ian waited. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes!” came the reply.

  “Don’t you want to see how the ro— Maria did?” Silence was his only response. “Please?”

  “Alright!” Jack trudged out from the kitchen and stopped in front of his dad. “Why are you on the floor? You don’t look so good, Dad.”

  “Fine, sure, just help me up.”

  “You want something to eat? Larry went shopping and bought too much food. You can even take some with you.”

  The thought of living off of Larry’s largesse both shamed and intrigued him. Ian wanted to pay his own way, make it on his own steam. But Larry owed him. Larry stole from him. He stole credit for saving the baby. He took his job from him,
his pride, his wife and maybe even Jack. The realization sunk in. He could lose Jack. His intestines twisted tighter. He shook his head. “Maybe later.”

  Back in Jack’s room, they surveyed Maria’s handiwork. Maria sat in the corner, shrunken to her at-rest size with arms and legs retracted, awaiting new orders.

  “She sort of got it right… in her own way,” Jack said.

  The pillow was at the top of the bed. It was squarely in the middle of the unpretentious, child-sized bed. The sheet and blanket were presumably done right as well, since the surface of the bed was flat. But the fitted sheet, it wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t on the bottom, where it was supposed to be. It was pulled tight over the top of the bed. The pillow and the rest lay snugly shrink-wrapped underneath it. Ian tapped the bed. “Tight as a drum! Not too shabby, Maria!”

  Jack laughed. “Dad! It’s not right!”

  “She’s still learning. I think she did alright. Could have been worse, you know,” Ian said.

  Jack put his hands on his hips and frowned.

  “Maria, clean the living room.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. With the new couch—”

  Ian silenced him with a wave of his hand. “Do you trust me?”

  “She can clean my room.”

  Maria beeped a melodic acknowledgment signal and walked to the living room. Her steps were slow and deliberate but almost human-like. She wobbled a little.

  Jack moved to follow the robot. Ian stopped him. “Wait, let’s talk.”

  Jack pushed against him. “We shouldn’t leave her alone in there.”

  “Don’t you trust—” A loud crash and tinkling of little pieces of glass mixed with the gurgle of water interrupted Ian.

  They ran for the living room. The coffee table was bare. The flowers lay strewn on the floor in between that leather couch and the table.

  “It’s okay,” Ian said. “She’ll clean that up.”

  The front door opened. Larry and Candy walked in, their arms filled with expensive shopping bags. Some were purple with white cursive writing, others displayed rotating images of well-built men and women doing expensive things. Candy was magnificent. Her blond hair was done up in large curls that hung all around her face. Her cheeks sparkled, her eyes were bright and her chest seemed a tad bigger. Larry looked younger and his paunch had grown.