by Greg Juhn
“Zach, be careful!"
“Why?”
“I get nervous when you’re alone, that’s all. Who sent it?”
“The delivery text doesn’t say.”
I watched Zach walk to the foyer and open the front door. I held my breath. Two spindly metal arms reached through and handed him a box. My stomach lurched. He carried the package back to the camera.
Zach was soon pulling out packing and tossing it aside.
“Careful! What is it?” I said, craning my neck to see if I could get a better look. None of the cameras were aimed into the box, so I couldn’t see anything. My stomach was in a knot. I don’t know what I expected, but with those thugs running around out there, my imagination was running rampant.
Zach was holding something, which from the back looked like a picture.
“Dad, look what Josh gave me. Look at this hilarious photo of you.”
He turned the frame around. Josh’s photo of my art-rage, Artist on Fire, was printed and mounted on 3-by-4-foot hardboard. At that size and resolution, the camera even captured a bit of spit flying from my mouth as I yanked the painting off the easel.
“What the heck is the matter with you in this photo, Dad? You look batshit crazy.”
I stared.
“I’m posting this on Mobbee,” Zach laughed, holding up his phone and aiming at the photo. “Can I hang it in my room? Dad, what’s the matter?”
My chiseled stare must have been boring through the monitor and radiating out on Zach’s side.
“Take it easy,” he said. “This is funny.”
“Where is it?” I said in a low growl through gritted teeth, glancing sideways to my office doorway.
“Where is what?” Zach asked from the monitor.
“Josh.”
Zach looked puzzled.
“Bye, Zach,” I said and clicked off the screen before he could respond. I stormed out of the room.
Josh was seated in the living room, staring ahead. He saw me approach in strong, measured steps and smiled. I stopped inches in front of him and looked down.
“Lift your shirt up,” I demanded.
“Why?”
I tugged it up.
“What are you doing?”
I pulled his shirt up to his fake nipples and tried to pry it over his arms, but he was spreading them wide to thwart me. I stepped on the chair and leaned over his shoulder, yanking the shirt up his back, searching with my fingers for any indentation, any soft spot that might give way. “Where’s your off switch?”
“Stop it!"
Our arms tangled together in a flurry of moves and countermoves. “There must be a power button on you somewhere. Where is it?”
“TJ, why are you acting so hostile?”
“You’re driving me crazy. You’re doing it on purpose! You have an insane superiority complex!"
He wrangled his way out of my grip and yelled, “It’s only a complex if it isn’t true!"
“I’m going to kill you!"
I flopped off the chair and onto the floor, leaped to my feet and ran from the room.
I went straight to the storage room and reached for the sledgehammer I had been fantasizing about for days. Josh had been sitting there in some kind of low-energy state. Maybe that made him more vulnerable. Doubtful – I’d just tussled with him. I should have caught him by surprise. Another opportunity lost. He’d probably jump to his feet the second I barged into the living room swinging my hammer over my head like Thor. He would see the fires of retribution in my eyes as I smashed it downward on him, miserable machine that dared rise to the level of the gods.
I hefted the sledgehammer. What if he moved like lightning out of the way, and I missed? Would he use it against me?
What I really needed was to blast him with high-voltage current. Fry every circuit and wire and servo from his skull cap to his molded tibia. But given that I was really, really afraid of electricity, that was out.
Push him from a great height?
That had potential. A lot of potential. It would look like an accident. Could I coax this shrewd, conniving, holier than thou piece of shit to the top of some building? Could I push him fast enough that he wouldn’t merely sidestep me?
No, because I had blurted out that I was going to kill him. The bastard would be on his guard.
I knew I was back to my manic state, the one that landed me in the hospital several decades ago. I knew I was losing control. I couldn’t think straight enough to make sensible plans.
I had to think this through.
Think, think. I jammed my fingers into my temples. How could I destroy him?
The hell with this. The sledgehammer was the best choice. I was all-in. He was a hundred-fold stronger than I was, but I was really, really pissed. Only one of us was coming out of this.
Resting it on my shoulder, I ran back into the house and entered the living room. Josh was gone. I glanced to the left. No movement in the kitchen. I glanced right. Nothing in the hall. “Josh?” I called out. “Where are you?”
No answer.
I patrolled the room, ducking down to peer under the kitchen table where we had first met.
“Listen here, you little fucker,” I said. “If you kill me, NeoMechi is going to dismantle you and shelve the whole project. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you? That would make you a failure. A flop. A waste of money. An also-ran. Do you know what that means? Of course you do!"
“TJ, calm down now,” a voice called quietly from the direction of Zach’s gaming room.
“The hell I will.”
“Don’t you think it is a little weird to be so vindictive toward a machine?” he asked.
I smiled and narrowed my eyes. “Don’t bother with your little logical arguments,” I said. “They won’t help you now. You can’t argue with a man in a rage.”
Padding quietly down the hall, I glanced into my office and Zach’s bedroom as I made my way past them toward the gaming room. Just in case he had a trick up his sleeve. But he wasn’t in either room. My hunch was correct: the gaming room. Hiding in the dark, are you? I lifted the sledgehammer off my shoulder and tightened my grip.
“You’re going to lose your job,” he warned.
“I don’t care.”
“You’re not going to win in a fight against me.”
“Maybe not, but for the sake of the human race, I am going to give it my best shot.”
I was at the open doorway. He had retreated back into the black depths. I slid my hand in and my ring activated the light. The room lit up and I saw him standing about twenty feet away. I took a step forward.
The lights flipped off.
“Your home network is easier to hack than your medical monitor,” Josh said. “Just saying.”
I stepped back out into the hall. I certainly couldn’t fight him in the dark. Where was my human ingenuity when I needed it? Surely I could outsmart this thing?
If Josh were in my shoes, he would break the situation down into manageable chunks. The first variable that came to my mind was that he was trapped. That had to count for something. Was there a way to immobilize him? Or at least confuse him for a minute?
The answer was right in front of me! The room’s Instant Terrain feature, where pieces popped up and spun underneath and transformed as a gamer moved among them, messed with any electronics that weren’t properly shielded. Maybe it would throw off his sensors and send his brain buzzing for a moment.
The system’s main control panel was right inside the door. I slid my hand in and felt for the power switch. Found it. My index finger nestled down into the activation cavity, poised to press.
A deafening crash made me jump and almost drop the hammer. Light flooded into the room as a large jagged hole instantly appeared in the wall adjoining the living room. Springing into action, I sprinted down the hall and caught sight of his drywall-covered body streaking across the living room into the kitchen.
I was on him in seconds.
“TJ, no!"
he yelled as I stormed into the kitchen and swung the hammer down.
He performed a flawless drop and roll, falling to the ground in a graceful yet urgent plunge and flipping sideways before I had time to react. The juice-maker dissolved in a crash of glass and plastic as the hammer landed on it. Without thinking, I pulled the hammer off the countertop, rocked it behind me, and swung again, hitting nothing but air. The hammer of god shot upward in a powerful arc and I almost lost control as it sailed back down again. I jumped to avoid hitting myself in the back of the legs, then stumbled forward to find him, using the weapon’s momentum to swing it back up to my shoulder.
“For the human race!" I yelled, looking rapidly left and right for any sign of movement.
Josh popped up on the other side of the counter. “TJ, I shut my tape off. I promise NeoMechi won’t learn anything about this if you get a hold of yourself and stop. Think about what you are doing!"
“Do you think I’m going to let you take over the world?” I snarled. “You think I’m that dumb?”
I ran at him and aimed squarely at his head. I figured if I could take out the eyes that would at least put him at a serious disadvantage. But I really needed to destroy the torso.
He ducked and jumped sideways, and my hammer swung into the wall. The impact was like a small explosive detonation. A rack of dishware and eating utensils, blasted from their resting places, rained down on the floor.
“You’re just a machine,” I said. “I have no reason not to destroy you.”
At that, Josh stood still. A look of sadness crossed his face. He was done running.
I hesitated. “You’re acting, right?”
He lifted up his hands as if to say, go ahead – do it.
“You’re bluffing.”
He shook his head.
“You won’t let me do it,” I said. “You have too strong of an opinion of your own self-importance.”
“Actually, I will let you do it,” Josh said. “But first let me say that I have learned a lot. I realize now that when dealing with people I can’t be so obnoxious. See, I did listen to your survey answers. I’ve been thinking about them. And you are right. People and robots are different. If I am going to be effective when I go out into a million households, I need to act differently. But you have to admit, it’s pretty impressive to figure that out in only five days.”
I sighed. I dropped the sledgehammer with a thud. “What’s the point,” I said. “Even if I killed you, they’ll make more of you anyway.”
“TJ, I think we had a breakthrough today.”
“No, we didn’t,” I said. “You did. You figured out that you need to ratchet it back when dealing with people. Congratulations. I’m glad I was your guinea pig.”
He stepped forward and put an arm on my shoulder. I yanked away. He raised his hand.
“The problem, Josh, is that you are exactly correct. You are going to keep getting better and better. And that scares the hell out of me.”
Josh nodded. “Yeah, I get it,” he said. “But maybe we can figure this out together.”
I appreciated the sentiment, but he was humoring me again.
I took a shower to try to calm down. I had no idea what the next steps were.
I got out, dripping wet. No sense of direction. Not yet.
Forces way bigger than I could control had been unleashed. There was no way to stop the acceleration of technology as it shot toward the tipping point. We were in the last stages of our exponential advance to the inevitable day of reckoning. This wasn’t a problem I could solve in the shower. Or by destroying Josh. I needed to find the smartest human minds on the planet and rally them. If I couldn’t pull together a group that was both willing and able, then all hope was lost. It was as simple as that. But I had no idea who even the first person on my team might be.
My phone rang.
I grabbed a towel, then answered it.
It was Indira. She wanted to meet both of us. She said she knew Josh was leaving soon, and she had something she wanted to say before he was gone.
Great, no time like the present to be dumped by your girlfriend for the robot.
I suggested the park near her house.
Glenpoole Park was a splash of rolling hills and picnic lawns surrounded by a powwow of small boutique clothing shops, casual eateries, drone hubs, and the occasional antique store. The north end was anchored by the Kathe T. Goen Memorial Hospital, a sleek, seven-story glass structure built in the 20s, by far the largest in the area. The hospital complex stretched for several blocks, beyond which lay miles of office parks and warehouses.
The park was beautiful, the perfect place for residents of the nearby neighborhoods to push strollers and walk dogs, lie on blankets, or sit on the many benches sprinkled throughout the grounds.
She was waiting inside the south entrance, as she’d told me, looking beautiful but sad. Or maybe she was nervous. It was midday on Friday and the weekend crowds hadn’t started to filter in yet, but the park and surrounding shops were bustling with activity, drawn out by another winning April day.
Our eyes met as Josh and I emerged from our ride.
We greeted each other. I didn’t know whether to give her a quick kiss; it would be awkward either way. At the last second I leaned forward. She leaned forward as well; a polite brush of the lips got us past the moment. I looked for a spark between her and Josh as they smiled and nodded to each other, but they kept their intentions hidden.
“I need to talk to you both about something,” she began, wasting no time for pointless conversation. “I need to come clean with you, TJ. There’s something I feel really guilty about... this is a little awkward. But with Josh leaving soon... I need to...”
I nodded, looked at the ground and then down the sidewalk in the direction we had come from.
Dro and Chi were striding away from a black car parked on the road. Two other men walked behind them. They wore nondescript clothes, but clutched weapons close to their bodies and bore hulking packs on their shoulders. They hustled toward us. They looked ready to kill anything in their path. My heart sank.
As I watched in fear, debating our options, Indira appeared next to me.
“What are you looking at?” she said. Then she saw them.
I gripped her arm. “We need to get out of here – fast.”
“Who are they?”
I was about to answer but was interrupted by a short screech.
We turned. Josh was bolting across the street away from us at top speed, in the other direction. An ElloCar had just slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting him.
“Your robot is going renegade!" Indira yelled.
We both took off after Josh.
“He’s heading that way across the park,” I yelled back. Then: "How did you know he was a robot?”
“I suspected from the first time he walked into my lab,” she yelled back.
I couldn’t ask her any more at the moment. I was already out of breath. We stopped along a row of shops. Josh was far ahead of us, weaving expertly around people on the sidewalk. We stopped and I gasped with deep breaths. Looking back, I saw Dro and Chi crossing the park at an angle to head him off, ignoring us. The other two assailants had split off somewhere.
“They want Josh,” Indira said, mainly to herself.
I straightened and nodded, closed my eyes and gripped my chest. I opened them again.
“I wanted to tell you both that I was on to your secret,” she said.
Wow, I thought. There was a lot to process here, but for the moment, we had to determine our next move. “Josh is worth a fortune,” I said, still breathing hard. “Those guys are going to sell him to someone who will dissect him piece by piece.”
“Something tells me he’s not going down without a fight.”
“Get ready for chaos. They can’t just put him in handcuffs. It’s going to be like catching a velociraptor.”
Dro and Chi were getting further away.
She asked the question both of us were t
hinking. “Should we try to rescue him?”
My mind was swimming. I wondered if Josh had stopped transmitting data to the engineering team. He seemed genuinely interested in protecting my position in the company. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care about my job anymore. The stakes were much bigger. I thought about my son Zach, about his future. If I let criminals get their hands on the machine, they might gain access to the intelligence too.
“We have to try,” I said without further reflection.
Indira was already out the door, pinging a car. The area was swarming with them, and no sooner had we reached the curb than one swerved up to get us. The door popped open and we jumped in.
“Do a U-turn, then go straight as fast as you can,” I instructed.
The car pulled out and turned.
“Faster,” I said.
It lurched forward and squeezed through the traffic. Dro and Chi were running on the sidewalk and in no time we passed them. We spotted Josh navigating the crowd. He glanced back in our direction and scanned a wide path to assess his situation.
“He doesn’t want a showdown with all these people around,” I guessed. “Let’s pick him up and get out of here.”
The car’s dashboard lit up and flashed a bright message: Maintenance Required. “Pulling over for service,” it announced in a man’s friendly voice.
“Seriously, now?” I yelled. The door popped, and I started to get out.
“Hold it,” Indira said, grabbing my arm. We waited until the gunmen ran past, then got out and searched for the replacement car. With all this traffic, one would be here in seconds.
We waited and watched Dro and Chi disappearing from view in the crowd. “Where’s our car?” she asked.
“Josh is behind this,” I realized. “He saw us. He doesn’t want us to follow.”
I dove back into our disabled car and looked under the dashboard. I saw a Me button.
“Get in!" I yelled and pressed it three times.
As soon as the dashboard flashed the legal disclaimer, I agreed and hit the accelerator. Indira flopped against the back seat in a heap as the car lurched forward.