Love in the Robot Dawn

by C. W. Crowe

  Her fear was back as was something else. I couldn't quite identify it for a moment until it came to me. It was resignation, and that caused me to feel something unexpected - concern.

  I stretched out my leg so the tingling would stop. "Probably not. Once they decide on something it takes an external event to make them change."

  Lucy looked uncertain, like she didn't understand. "Here's an example. Every Sunday afternoon, we take the bus to the zoo as a family and then we walk back. We've done it for many months. Last winter, it started to snow hard one Sunday morning and the buses couldn't run as it got deeper and deeper. See? This forced dad – that’s what he wants me to call him - to change. They spent the entire afternoon sitting, unmoving and unspeaking, in the living room. Then, at just the moment we would have returned from the zoo, mom got up and announced she'd make something special for supper. That's exactly the same thing she always says and, from that moment on, things were totally like always."

  Lucy feelings didn't change. I'd answered her question, but I don't think she'd seriously hoped they might just let her leave.

  It did bring up an opening though and I took it. "How . . . how did you get here? Where'd you come from?"

  The moon was approaching full and streamed its light through the large picture window in the living room. My eyes were used to the semi-darkness, so I could see her clearly. She moved underneath the blanket and I had a mental picture of her pulling her legs up and sitting on them.

  "Are you sure you didn't have anything to do with this? You never asked them for a girl?"

  "No Lucy, I swear I didn't. They wouldn't have done it anyway, you know that. They only take suggestions from humans when they ask for them."

  She nodded and I could feel she'd accepted what I'd said. "You should see the bedroom. It's so robot - all dressed up like a whore's bedroom, draped with red all over the place, loads of makeup on the dressing table. The only other clothes they have for me is a night gown, if you can call it that. I think they got their notions of mating from the internet."

  She was probably right about that. They made their choices in clothes, cars and many other things based on what had once been on the net. Some dressed like gangsters from the 1930s, while others wore clothes appropriate to a Japanese geisha. It was whatever suited their strange robot fancies.

  Sex would be no different. In all likelihood, they learned about "mating" from the net. From what Lucy said, likely the porn part of the net.

  *.*.*

  She nodded at me. "I believe you, I guess."

  We both waited in silence as if she was making up her mind whether she wanted to answer my question about where she'd come from. In the end, she just started to talk.

  "I grew up on a farm about twenty miles outside Ft. Smith. My parents were very religious and I was home schooled all the way through high school. I had a good group of home school friends that I grew up with, but there were only about thirteen kids my age in the group. We went on day trips and entered spelling bees and mostly did what other kids did in public school."

  She paused and I could tell she had to work to get the next part out.

  “Then the robots came and everyone was scared, but the TV and radio kept saying there was nothing to be concerned about. Our preacher was a man named Welby who preached that the robots were sent by God to test mankind, to give us just one more chance. I remember when the robots started to talk and look like humans - Preacher Welby said judgment was nigh and that we should all stay near our homes, put up supplies and prepare for the worst.”

  I couldn’t tell in the poor light, but I was pretty sure another tear or two had run down her cheeks. It had been so long since I’d had normal human contact - and especially contact with a female - that those tears were almost shocking. I didn’t know whether to try and comfort her or just remain quiet.

  Before I could decide, she started her story again. “When . . . when the robots started to destroy everything - when the phones went dead and no planes could fly and the power was off for good - when all that happened, most of our neighbors and friends decided to leave. They heard a rumor that people were banding together somewhere down near New Orleans, but I never knew if that was true. We didn’t have running cars because they all stopped working and besides, the bridges were down. That meant a long walk to get to safety and by then my mother was sick.

  "People getting sick had become common since we were without doctors and medicine and hospitals. If one person took ill, it often spread until lots of others had it. My young friends, all about eighteen, were anxious to leave. They paired up and were married by the preacher. Most of the other families who were healthy enough decided to walk with them, but my mom was too sick and dad wouldn’t leave her.”

  I was spellbound by her story. “You didn’t go? You were left behind?”

  I could see her head nod in agreement. “Me, my parents and a few others. Actually, I wasn’t asked to go. You see, there were six boys and seven girls. There was one too many girls for the marrying and well . . . you’ve seen me. No one asked me, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t have left my mom and dad anyway.”

  When she said that it didn’t matter, I felt something hot flash in my head. It was an especially intense emotion. When she started again, I was sure I could hear pain in her voice.

  “Well, after my friends left, most of those who had remained behind started to die. I tried to help, but there wasn’t much I could do other than dig graves.

  “And that’s the way things have been for almost three years. I’ve been alone, living off the land and the remains of things stored away on the nearby farms. But I ran out - out of food, of seed, of luck, of everything. I had no choice but to leave. I knew the robots had taken Ft. Smith as their new home or headquarters or whatever, but I decided to head here anyway. It didn’t make much sense then, but I was hungry and that’s what I did. I remember thinking that I’d probably be killed and that didn’t bother me all that much. I guess I envied those who had passed beyond the pain of living.”

  I thought about the humans that I’d shared a cage with just this morning. They all were barely functioning with a bad case of the Freezies. I wondered if they could have experienced more than this poor girl had. At that moment, I doubted it.

  “So that’s about it. I was wandering near the perimeter of Ft. Smith when a robot aircraft landed beside the road. They took me inside, examined me and interrogated me - threatened to use that shock stick a couple of times, but there was no need. I didn’t know anything other than what I’d already told them. I guess they eventually realized that because yesterday they took me to this house and introduced me to my new ‘mom.’ The female robot took my clothes and made me dress like a hooker and then today you knocked on the door. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

  Chapter Seven: The Fight

  One emotion that I seldom felt was empathy, but I felt it now. What they had done to Lucy was awful, but then again, what they'd done to all of us was wrong. Maybe she was right - maybe the dead ones were better off.

  We sat in silence for some time listening to the house creak and pop as it cooled for the night. She pulled the blanket tighter around her.

  Finally, I broke the silence. "What's your full name?" The robots always called us by a single name. Maybe they felt that, with so few humans left, having more than one name was somehow inefficient.

  She answered almost immediately, "It's Lucy Anne Hargrove." There was a note of something in her voice that I couldn't place.

  "And you?" Her words were soft.

  "I was born as Leonard Wayne Smith. It's nice to meet you, Lucy Anne Hargrove."

  *.*.*

  She shifted again under the cover and then asked, "So . . . in the morning . . . what are we going to tell them? Should we lie and tell them we . . . mated?"

  I felt a fresh squirt of fear juice enter my bloodstream. "Lying is chancy. The last time I did, they found out and used the pain stick."

  "How'd they fin
d out?"

  "I was supposed to throw out all the outdated food items in the pantry and I forgot. I didn't say anything because they don't even eat and I couldn't see how being a day late would matter. That evening as dad was getting ready to go to his club, he asked if I'd finished all my chores for the day. I'd never failed in a task before and didn't want to admit to it then, so I lied and told him I'd done everything. I figured he was leaving and there was no way he'd check the pantry.

  "But somehow he knew. Maybe it was because he was monitoring my vital signs like some super advanced lie detector, or maybe I'm just an awful liar. Either way, he knew and I got the pain stick. I've never lied since then."

  She let the top of the blanket fall below her chin so I could see her face in the dim light. "So what do you think we should do?" There was a pause and I could feel something big spark in my head, some type of alarm from her. Before I could think of anything to say, she started to almost shout, "And don't you suggest that we just obey them! I won't do that, got it? Not like this, not ever! If you really have been planning this, you can forget it because, good liar or not, you can't fool me!"

  I was shocked at her outburst, but she must have taken my silence for something else because she added, "Got it?" Her voice was full of venom.

  At first I was hurt at her outburst, but that quickly changed. Maybe it was because I'd lost the skill of controlling my emotions, but her words caused something to snap - I think I literally saw red.

  *.*.*

  I wasn't used to having extended conversations with other humans and I certainly wasn't used to having one with a woman, but her accusatory tone set me off. What had I done wrong? Nothing, that's what!

  I couldn't help myself - I answered her shouted words with some of my own. "Who said anything about obeying them? Listen to me, Ms. Hargrove! You are on the edge of alienating the one person in the world that might actually be able to help you. You think the only thing we can do is tell them either that we did or didn't follow their orders? You think we're equally in this together? If you do, then think again! I could just tell them that I tried to obey but you refused."

  I started to say more, to tell her that if I blamed it all on her I'd be able to continue my mostly drama-free life because they'd sure as hell take her away to . . . somewhere. But at least I had enough control not to say that last part.

  I took a breath, half expecting her to resume shouting, but there was nothing. I felt my anger deflate like a balloon that had been pricked. A few minutes ago, I'd been feeling sorry for Lucy and then she'd triggered me and I said something that I didn't mean. Regardless of how angry I might have been, I'd never in a million years do what I'd threatened. It wasn't human and it sure wasn't me.

  But she didn't know that.

  *.*.*

  My head was spinning. Had I said something so hurtful that it could never be forgiven? Had I doomed her with my threat? Momentarily, I saw an image of myself, living alone with the robots like I had the last three years. It was the same as before, but different. I felt very, very sad.

  Lucy was still mad though, because she practically leapt off the couch and ran to the bedroom, dragging the blanket behind her. As she got to the door, she turned and said in a calm voice, "Don't you worry, Leonard. You don't have to tell them a damned thing because I'll take care of it. I'll tell them that if they want you to mate with me, they'll have to force me to do it. And if they do, you won't like it, I promise you that!"

  She was shouting again and for the second time in the few hours I'd known her, Lucy slammed the bedroom door shut.

  If anything, it was louder and more violent than before.

  Chapter Eight: Orders Orders

  There was no way I could sleep; no way to make my brain slow down and rest. I kept going over what I'd done, replaying every detail, every word, again and again. It was like my brain had turned robot.

  And If I did manage to make myself stop thinking about what had happened tonight, I found myself wondering about the Nursery. This was a place across town to the north, near the barrier the robots had erected all around Ft. Smith. The rumors said a group of females were kept there. It was said that this was the reason why there were so few females assigned as robot pets - they were stashed in the Nursery, ready to be bred as needed to maintain the exact same numbers of humans for . . . how long? Maybe forever. The robots did love their humans after all, but we would have to be replaced as we grew old and died. They probably thought of it as maintenance.

  As I sat in the dark, I pictured Lucy being taken to the Nursery. I had no idea what they would do to her, but I shivered at the various possibilities and forced myself to stop that line of thinking.

  Which brought me right back to reliving the fight I'd had with Lucy and how I'd put her in such danger.

  I got up and went to the bedroom door. As I approached, the noise from Lucy increased in my head, but it still wasn't very loud. I guessed she was either sleeping or at least had calmed down a lot. She had been captured, interrogated and assigned to a robot family over the last couple of days, so it wasn't surprising that she'd be asleep - even given what she planned to do in the morning.

  Openly rebelling against the wishes of the robots was a plan that I had to make sure she didn't carry out. I couldn't be responsible for having her taken away to an even worse fate than the one that waited for her here.

  Besides, I kind of liked the noise she made in my head. It made me feel human.

  *.*.*

  The next morning, I knew that mom would arrive at exactly 8:27 a.m. That’s when she would have gotten the family up, made breakfast, (which they would all look at but not eat) and would have seen dad off to the office and the kids to the school bus. It was her normal weekday routine. As soon as the kids were gone, she'd call me to come eat the breakfast she'd cooked and then, depending on the day of the week, she'd go shopping or prepare to meet some of her "girlfriends" for cards. Robots absolutely loved to play cards, delighting in, I think, the randomness of the games. One of my chores was to shuffle the decks because that's the only way they wouldn't know what cards were going to be played. Nick Presser had once told me that life in general, and humans in particular, were the only examples of true randomness the robots had ever experienced. He thought that was why they stopped at earth and did what they did.

  A few minutes before mom arrived, I stood outside Lucy's door and knocked softly.

  There was no reply, but the noises in my head increased so that I knew she was awake and had heard me.

  I spoke to the door in a soft voice, "Lucy, listen to me please. I want to apologize for what I said last night. I was just angry - I didn't mean it."

  Still nothing. Her noise level increased though.

  "I . . . I think it's because I've been with the robots so long. I think I forgot how to act human, you know? How to interact with another real person. I didn't mean to hurt you. I told you that and it's the truth. Will you forgive me?"

  She didn't answer my question, but she did speak. "So what now? When they come?"

  "I know their habits. It'll be just mom. Let me do all the talking. Don't you say anything - not a word, okay?"

  I heard soft footsteps. She'd moved to the other side of the door, just inches from me. "What are you going to say to her?"

  "It's best if you don't know. Like I told you, they are good at picking up on lying, so I'm not going to do that, but if you speak, she'll know. So, please Lucy, just let me handle her. Will you do that? Please trust me on this."

  It took several seconds, but she finally answered, "I don't really have a choice, do I?" It was said with a tone of resignation.

  She was talking to me. That was something, at least.

  Just then, the doorbell rang.

  *.*.*

  Mom was wearing her Monday dress. It was a red sheath with a high neckline and long sleeves. It ended just below her knees. Her hair was curled with a twist at the end and was held tightly by hair spray. It was bright blue. Her makeup
was perfect. It was all perfect . . . and it was right out of the 1950s.

  That was because of me. I'd suggested that look to her and, after spending time researching it on the internet that only the robots could use, she'd approved wholeheartedly.

  It was my job. Every once in a while I would use the key words - may I make a suggestion. When I said that, mom or dad would stop whatever they were doing and give me their attention. The idea was to provide them new things to be or do. The trick was to make suggestions infrequently - because they didn't like to change their routines too often. That would cause them some type of robot indigestion, I suppose.

  But having humans around, unpredictable random humans, meant they could be offered something new once in a while.

  She stared at me with her normal smile and immediately moved to enter. I had no choice - it was either move out the way or get pushed back so that I tripped and landed on my butt.

  Mom entered and kicked the door shut. She'd seen someone do that in a movie and did it every chance she got. She surveyed the living room and looked into the bedroom through the partially opened door. I knew she was waiting for a report.

  Lucy was behind me, still wearing the blanket like a cape around her shoulders and held together in front of her face.

  Before anything bad could happen I said, "Mom, may I make a suggestion?" I used my most neutral voice, trying not to alert her that something was wrong.

  Instantly, she stopped all movement and her eyes seemed to lose focus. She was probably checking in with robot central, maybe even with the ship itself, still orbiting the planet. This normally took only a second or so. "Go ahead," she said, returning to her normal smile. It was what I expected.