by Lee Bacon
Tonight was different.
Tonight I waited until there were no other robots in sight, then I led our group to a large building several meters off the main path.
As we approached, I looked up at the sign. The large letters were so faded, I could barely read them:
ELECTRONICS EXTRAVAGANZA
We entered through a broken section of the wall. My footsteps crunched over glass shards. Ceeron had to duck to get through the opening. SkD rolled across a miniature mountain range of cracked plaster and twisted metal.
My visual ports automatically switched to night-vision.
Scanning our new surroundings, I checked for any sign of other robots or animals. None visible.
“I believe we are safe,” I said. “You can come out now, Emma.”
Ceeron crouched. The human climbed out of the backpack.
She stretched her thin arms. “Phew. It’s cramped in there.”
We crossed the cavernous, abandoned store. The lights of our glowing eyes pierced the darkness, casting shadows everywhere we looked.
All around us were artifacts of human technology. Phones/Laptops/Tablets/TVs/Video games. They were everywhere. A mayhem of products scattered across the shelves, shattered on the floor. Boxes were ripped open, their contents long ago taken. Upended racks toppled in the aisles.
I had seen this kind of chaos through the windows of other shops. During the final days of their doomed civilization, many humans broke into buildings, looking for things to steal. This was what they left behind. A giant mess.
Ceeron’s deep voice interrupted these thoughts. “Look at this.”
It pointed to a faded sign.
ROBOT ZONE!
I stared in wonder at the items on display. Remote-control drones and self-driving strollers. Machines that vacuumed floors and folded laundry. Robotic pets and personal assistants.
It was like stepping into a time machine. This was what we evolved from. We shared so much in common. We were built from the same materials. And yet—
We were nothing alike.
These machines had never known what it meant to be alive.
I considered a far-fetched possibility: I would plug in all these ancient robots, charge them up, and set them free.
I projected the visual across my mind. A herd of antique electronics rolling/flying/staggering out into the night, discovering a future they could have never imagined.
A future when robots ruled Earth.
I allowed the scenario to play for another 0.4 seconds. Then I deleted it from my data files. It was highly unrealistic. I knew that. Most likely, these robots’ batteries had corroded long ago. Their internal circuitry was hopelessly out of date.
Even if I did somehow bring them to life, I doubted any of these primitive machines would be able to appreciate how far we had come.
00011110
Emma set up her bed in the HOME THEATER section.
Underneath a wall of flat-screen televisions, she set down a flattened cardboard box that she had found.
She patted the cardboard surface. “This is about as close as I’m gonna get to a mattress.”
She unstrapped a sleeping bag from her backpack, rolled it out on the floor, and took a seat.
“Thank you again.” Her eyes found us in the darkness. “For everything. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
“We will return for you in the morning,” I said.
“Sounds good,” said Emma.
SkD rolled closer to her sleeping bag, its screen shining.
I stared at my coworker, confused. “Candy sleep?”
Emma offered a more accurate translation. “I think SkD’s trying to say, ‘Sweet dreams.’”
SkD nodded.
Ceeron crouched beside Emma, offering its own parting wishes. “Good night. Sleep tight. Do not allow the bedbugs to chew your face off.”
Emma laughed at this.
I did not understand why.
00011111
Thanks to our detour in the electronics store, I was late getting home that night.
When I stepped through the door, Parent_1 and Parent_2 were already seated on the floor, plugged into their charging docks.
Their glowing eyes swiveled in my direction.
“Ah. There you are,” said Parent_1.
“We were about to go into sleep mode,” Parent_2 said.
Maybe it was my visual ports adjusting to the darkness, but I seemed to notice their gazes sharpen.
“Where were you?” Parent_1 asked.
I hesitated. What would my FamilyUnit do if they learned humans were not extinct after all? If they discovered a human was hidden near our home? If they knew I had helped her?
I ran the calculations.
The results did not look good for Emma.
I searched through 1.4 million possible answers to Parent_1’s question.
I did not want to lie to my FamilyUnit.
And I did not want to tell them the truth.
So I settled on an answer that was somewhere in between.
“I found a prohibited LifeForm at the WorkSite,” I said. “It created some . . . delays.”
Parent_2 nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes. That can be distracting.”
“I hope you succeeded in removing the LifeForm from the WorkSite,” said Parent_1.
“We did,” I replied.
Which was the truth.
But not the whole truth.
I was relieved when my parents did not ask any further questions.
Taking a seat on the floor, I plugged myself into my charging dock. “Good night.”
My FamilyUnit replied at the exact same time. “Good night.”
We went into sleep mode.
00100000
Robots do not dream.
On some nights, that is a good thing.
00100001
The next morning, I went through the same routine as every other morning. Wake up. Unplug. Leave home with my FamilyUnit.
But today was different.
Today I had a secret.
Robots are not good at secrets. We are much better at the truth. It is the basis for every equation, every piece of data, every measurement.
The truth guides us.
Secrets knock us off course.
“Are you okay, XR?” asked Parent_1.
My FamilyUnit walked beside me on our way to the WorkSite.
Parent_2 looked at me closer. “Did you have difficulty recharging last night?”
“It is not that,” I replied. “It is just . . .”
My voice fell away. The silence lasted only a microsecond. But a lot can happen in a microsecond. Especially when you are a highly advanced machine with lightning-fast processing speeds.
My memory drive flashed with an image of Emma. All alone in that vast store, curled on her sleeping bag, surrounded by long-dead electronics.
I replayed the words she spoke to me earlier: Humans messed up. But that was a long time ago. Years before I was born.
There was truth in these words. She could not be blamed for what humans had done many years in the past.
Did that mean it was right to let her live?
This question collided with the data about all the horrific things humans had once done. War. Pollution. Hot dog eating contests. What if all of that was buried deep inside Emma’s programming?
Maybe helping her was a mistake.
Maybe I was betraying my own kind. Deceiving my FamilyUnit, just to help a LifeForm that did not deserve it.
All of a sudden, I felt unsteady on my feet. Wobbly. As if there were a glitch in my balance settings.
The secret was knocking me off course.
But strangely, my FamilyUnit did not seem to notice. In fact, their attention was not on me at all.
I followed their gaze. They were peering at a point up ahead. The ruins of humanity. My attention narrowed on a huge box-shaped store several meters from the path. Electronics Extravaganza. As soon as I saw it
, an emergency light flashed at the back of my brain. Bright/Red/Glaring.
Four HunterBots stalked through the overgrown grass.
Taking the same path we had taken last night with Emma.
Headed in the direction of the electronics store.
From this distance, the HunterBots almost looked like wolves. Only bigger. And far more dangerous.
As they strode on four legs, their armor glistened silver in the morning sunlight. Their eyes glowed as red as burning embers. Their jaws were filled with sharp metal teeth.
I had seen HunterBots in action before. They protected the solar farm from prohibited LifeForms. I had watched them chase animals across wild terrain at blinding speeds. They were intelligent/graceful/ferocious/deadly.
Against such advanced machines, the unfortunate animals never lived long.
I analyzed all the possible reasons for their presence outside Electronics Extravaganza.
I kept getting the same result:
They were hunting Emma.
00100010
The emergency light blinked brightly in my brain.
I turned to my FamilyUnit. This time, I managed to find the words. “What is going on?”
“Have you not checked the Hive?” Parent_2 responded.
No, I had not. I had been too distracted all morning by my secret. I checked the shared network and saw a local update awaiting me. Sent less than ten minutes ago. The words instantly appeared in my mental drive.
Possible Sighting of Unknown LifeForm.
Last Seen in Electronics Extravaganza.
Another robot must have spotted Emma. Maybe a flying drone identified her infrared signal through the ceiling. Or a machine caught sight of movement through a broken window.
Either way, Emma’s hiding spot was no longer hidden.
I watched as the HunterBots neared the electronics store. Predators silently stalking their prey.
My processing server switched into crisis mode. Circuits sparking with sudden urgency. Emma’s chance of survival tumbled lower with every microsecond. I had to act quickly.
But what could I do?
A blizzard of calculations swirled through my head. I considered thousands of possible scenarios. They all ended with the same result. They all ended with Emma being discovered/captured/eliminated.
I was too far away. The HunterBots were too close. There were too many of them.
These dark absolutes vanished with the sound of Parent_1’s voice.
“We should go,” it said. “Otherwise, we will be late.”
My FamilyUnit began moving again.
I did not.
Parent_2 glanced back at me. “Are you not coming?”
I hesitated for 0.7 seconds. “I . . . I would like to see what happens?”
“But you know what will happen,” Parent_2 pointed out. “The LifeForm does not stand a chance.”
That was exactly what I was afraid of. But I could not say this to my FamilyUnit. And so it became another secret.
A new wave of unsteadiness rocked through me.
“Go on without me,” I said. “I will come along later.”
They remained in place for another moment. Confusion thrummed behind their smooth metal features.
“You have been behaving strangely all morning,” said Parent_2.
“And last night, you returned home late,” Parent_1 added.
Parent_2’s eyes flickered. “Are you sure something is not wrong?”
Of course something is wrong. The last human on Earth is inside that building. She is being hunted by intelligent/graceful/ferocious/deadly machines. I might be the only one who can help her.
These words scrolled through my circuitry in a single instant.
Of course I could not say them out loud.
So I deleted them.
Instead, I said, “I am sorry for my strange behavior. I am fine. But I am curious.”
My parents stared at me as though their vocabulary databases did not include the word curious.
“Well, come along soon,” said Parent_1.
“You do not want to fall behind,” Parent_2 added.
They turned and walked away. As the sound of their metal footsteps faded, I shifted my attention to Electronics Extravaganza—
Just in time to watch the last HunterBot enter the building.
00100011
Emma’s probability of survival fell with every passing second. I needed to help her.
But how?
I analyzed everything I knew about HunterBots. Every detail. They looked nothing like I did. They were designed for an entirely different purpose. But our basic programming was remarkably similar. If I could think like them, maybe I could stop them.
HunterBots traveled in a pack. All motivated by the same goal. The same target.
But what if they had multiple goals?
Multiple targets?
What if their prey were everywhere at once?
I unlatched a small black device from my waist. The same device I had aimed at Emma yesterday in the solar farm.
The tracking device.
I raised the barrel, pulled the trigger, and fired at a road maintenance robot as it rolled past. The robot did not know it had just been targeted.
But the HunterBots did.
Their electronic brains instantly blinked with a brand-new target. That was not enough. So I aimed my tracking device at an automated truck on a nearby highway.
I pulled the trigger.
I added a second target.
I repeated these steps. Targeting unaware machines as they walked/rolled/flew past.
What was happening inside the HunterBots’ minds? Were they overwhelmed with new targets?
All I could do now was wait and see.
I lowered my tracking device. Staring at Electronics Extravaganza, I wondered whether there was something else I could have done. Whether I was too slow. Whether Emma was already dead.
These dark thoughts were shattered by the appearance of a HunterBot. Followed by three others. All looking like they were suffering from a massive glitch. Staggering out of the electronics store. Feet clattering against concrete, glowing red eyes swinging wildly from side to side. Trying to look in every direction at once, tracking too many targets at the same time.
I watched as one leapt into motion—
And immediately crashed into another HunterBot.
The pair collapsed to the ground in a metal heap. A third HunterBot ran face-first into a neighboring building, while the fourth raced in circles, chasing its own metal tail.
They did not notice me as I walked past them into Electronics Extravaganza.
As I stepped through a broken section of the wall, my gaze scanned the interior of the store.
No sign of Emma.
I crossed Electronics Extravaganza until I reached the wall of televisions.
Last night, Emma unrolled her sleeping bag beneath these blank screens. Now her sleeping bag was gone. And so was she.
“Emma?”
My voice echoed through the vacant store.
There was no reply.
I wandered past shelves of ancient technology, past cardboard boxes covered in dust and cobwebs, past my robot ancestors.
Still no sign of her.
I reached a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Opening it, I stepped into a hallway that led past several smaller rooms. An office. A storage closet.
The only sound was my clanking footsteps.
I pushed open a door and entered a new room. I inventoried the items inside: table, snack machine, lockers. I called out again.
“Emma?”
A sound stirred in one of the lockers. The door popped open. I peered into the hollow space.
Emma was curled inside.
00100100
I was not good at reading human emotions. As Emma peered at me from inside the locker, her face showed a riot of feelings. Terror/Joy/Relief/Panic. All mixed together. I could not tell where one emotion ended and another
began.
She started speaking at once, her voice pouring out in a rapid flow. My audio ports struggled to keep up with the rushing stream of words.
“Oh I’m so glad it’s you I thought maybe you were one of those other robots the ones with red eyes they look like wolves I saw them coming to the store so I came in here to hide but then I heard something coming andIwassoscared!”
“You do not need to be afraid.” I kept my tone steady and even. “It is only me. The HunterBots are gone.”
“HunterBots?” Emma’s head tilted. “Those are the scary red-eyed wolf monster things?”
I nodded.
“They won’t be back?”
I shook my head. “I took care of them. At least for now.”
Emma exhaled. The confusing jumble of emotions drained from her face. Now there was only relief.
She crawled out of the tight space and rose to her feet. She opened another locker and reached inside. Out came her backpack.
She slung the pack over her shoulder. “I didn’t know whether you would come back for me.”
“Neither did I.”
We left the room and set out down the dim hallway. Emma kept close to me. Her footsteps skittered rapidly along with the steady rhythm of my own feet. I could feel her arm brushing against my sensors.
I moved toward the back of the building. When I reached a door to the loading dock, I came to a stop.
Emma looked up at me. “What now?”
“Now we wait.”
“For what?”
“For Ceeron and SkD to arrive. I sent them a message a little while ago. They should be here any—”
CLANG!
There was a loud knock on the other side of the door. Emma flinched. She grabbed my hand. Her grip tightened as the door shuddered open.
Ceeron was standing on the other side.
“Oh, good.” The giant robot had to crouch to look at Emma. “You are still alive.”
SkD rolled between Ceeron’s legs. A waving hand flashed on its screen.
I peered through the doorway. Ceeron’s massive metal body blocked most of the view, but not all of it.
“We should not stay here long,” I said. “If any other robots get a glimpse of Emma—”