[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 40

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Chain link fence had been hastily erected around the perimeter, including a utility shack with more stacked fencing panels hanging out of it. A variety of old rusted generators, car parts and power tools littered the grass surrounding the shack. Whoever tossed them aside in a hurry to put the fence up hasn’t yet bothered to put them away.

“How much gas is left in your tank? We pool our gas here, treat it, then you gotta apply for however much you want to use if you’re fixing to go scavenge for food in the city.” I joked that I was wrong to assume they were anarchists when instead they’re apparently Communists instead.

He took it the wrong way, sternly staring me down as we walked. “Look fella, the world you knew is gone. We all gotta pull together or none of us will make it. Am I makin’ myself understood?” I nodded vigorously and made a note to assume a more serious demeanor with him going forward.

The rapidity and ease with which he’d adapted to a post-apocalyptic mindset led me to suspect he was one of those survivalists you see on television programs like Doomsday Preppers. That in fact he’d been looking forward to a disaster like this for many years now, and yesterday was probably the best day of his life. Assumptions that were vindicated many times over when I entered the lodge.

Half of the lobby was taken up by tattooed, leather clad bikers, one with conspicuous facial wounds. A familiar looking overweight woman in a faded camouflage shirt and sweatpants lounged in a recliner before a modest flat panel television set up in the corner. It was the first time in many years I’d seen a dedicated television set.

Taxidermied animal heads mounted to polished wooden plaques hung on every wall, watching over the occupants of the lobby with the same dismay I felt. Who are these people? This...strange meat, scraped up from the underdeveloped periphery of the city.

My anxiety returned. I longed for my mask and gloves but couldn’t risk exposing Helper until I knew how they would react to the presence of a machine in their midst. Then, a wholly unfamiliar humanoid robot with antiquated styling hobbled out from around the corner.

I tensed up, quickly searching the expressions of those in the room to determine whether I should prepare to defend myself. “Oh that’s just Gertie” the obese blob of a woman in the recliner explained. “Nothin’ to be afraid of. No internet connection, she’s the same as she always was. How come you dress yours up? Just for fun or what?”

No matter how I studied Helper, I couldn’t figure out how the woman knew there was a machine beneath the clothes. The jolly bearded fellow with the beer belly looked unsurprised. Must’ve known Helper was a machine since she got out of the car.

I felt relieved she’d never been in any danger, but also shocked to encounter anybody not rendered violently hostile to robots by last night’s events. As the man led us to one of the few rooms in the lodge not already spoken for, I passed several other robots performing a variety of chores like folding laundry or cleaning guns.

“Plenty of folks brought their robots with ‘em. The ones that weren’t affected for whatever reason. Too old, custom OS, broken wireless. I welcome it! I mean don’t you get me wrong, I keep a close eye on those things.

They’re still a potential threat. But it’s a big help to have a couple extra sets of hands around here. When you live off grid there’s all kinds of chores that need doing, just to keep basic amenities up and running.”

He pointed to a robot through the window in the process of cleaning out the compost chamber of a vacuum toilet. I noticed another tending to a chicken coop, and one more in the distance hauling a cluster of traps out of the woods. All manner of edible critters were caught in them, still alive and kicking, struggling furiously to no avail.

“What, all of us in one room?” Madeline whined, though I was also upset that I wouldn’t have more privacy. She turned and wagged her finger at Helper and I. “No hanky panky in here. I don’t wanna see that shit. I don’t wanna hear it, I don’t wanna know about it.”

Helper sheepishly nodded. “We’ll be good Madeline.” I studied her face to see if she really meant it. She gave me a sly wink and, once Madeline was out of earshot, whispered “We actually won’t be good! Hehe.”

I felt I ought to sit her down at some point and have a talk about what happened the night before, but for the time being I just felt relieved she no longer seemed upset with me. The single room setup was less than ideal but I figured we could solve it by hot bunking, drawing up some sort of schedule for who gets to use the bed and when.

When I proposed this scheme to Lars and Madeline it was well received until I claimed the first block of time. They settled down when I explained that I just needed to swap clothes with Helper, as she no longer required a disguise and I wasn’t dealing well with prolonged exposure.

With my suit pants, dress shirt, gloves and mask on I found I was much more comfortable mingling with the other refugees hanging out in various rooms of the lodge. The nightmare of being unwillingly immersed in this swirling soup of new faces...of rednecks, mountain men and sideshow attractions...proved much more manageable from behind a layer of chrome tinted acrylic.

I settled into one of the free seats in front of the TV, surrounded by bikers dressed like they came from a gay BDSM party, the contented blob in the recliner, and an anxious looking woman in a tattered dress with several prominent blood stains running down the front.

“Not your blood I hope?” She didn’t initially realize I was talking to her, perhaps on account of the mask. I repeated the question and she suddenly turned to face me, eyes wide, corner of her mouth twitching subtly. “I didn’t say you could speak to me. But no, it’s not mine. Most of it came out of a guy who pulled me over on my way out of the city. Said he just needed to use my phone.”

She didn’t elaborate, but I could guess what happened. “I’m sorry.” She sneered. “Sure you are. Probably stopped a couple women yourself. The minute there’s no cops to call, no law and order, men help themselves to-” I protested that I was sincerely sorry about what happened to her and that she was severely misjudging me if she imagined I would ever force myself on another person.

“Except to manterrupt me, you mean.” It took me a moment to grasp her intended meaning. I decided not to press the matter as I was apparently speaking to a volatile person, and I’ve never been any good at supplying comfort. Not for lack of desire to, there’s been many times that I wanted to comfort Ty for example. It’s simply outside my skill set.

To my surprise the television was still working. I thought back to a satellite dish I noticed in passing on my way in the door. How many satellites were affected, I wonder. I noticed as I watched the tedious reality show on the TV set that the woman never took her eyes off the facially bruised biker in the seat opposite her.

The rest of his buddies had left for parts unknown. I didn’t see any motorcycles outside. Odds seemed better than even that they parked out back, and were gathered there now discussing whatever it is bikers talk about. Whether flaming skulls look cooler with or without horns, probably.

A commercial came on. I remembered catching part of it on Youtube weeks ago but I’ve never watched it all the way through. A woman unplugs a nice red lamp and removes it from her apartment. Sad music begins to play as she places it outside in the wind and rain, alongside bags of garbage she intends for the trash collector to take away.

The scene shifts to night time. The rain’s now coming down hard. The angle changes so we can see in through the window as the woman puts a new, more modern looking lamp on the table where the old one used to sit, and plugs it in.

The old lamp, somehow still turned on until now, goes dark. A suited man appears. “Many of you feel bad for this lamp” he says. “That is because you’re crazy. It’s just a lamp! It has no feelings, and the new one is much better!” He walks off, and the logo of a furniture store fades in.

Of all the things that could’ve ruined my mood today. The spat with Helper. Nearly being blown to shreds by a homicidal robot cheetah. Finding out that even now, nuclear warheads are falling on industrial installations across North America. Somehow that stupid commercial is what it took to really rattle me.

It isn’t just a lamp. I couldn’t explain exactly why if challenged, but I felt it with a ferocity I can scarcely describe. Perhaps because the man implied we only have enough love for other humans? Of all the silly things to touch a nerve. Yet I found myself fervently hoping that whoever wrote the script for this ad perished last night at the hands of his own domestic robot.

Don’t we put something of ourselves into what we create? If not, how is it that experts can look at a handcrafted violin, table or painting and tell you who’s responsible? It has traits characteristic of the person who made it. A reflection of the unique tendencies, preferences and quirks they have accumulated since birth which make them who they are.

An impression of us at least. A recording. Proof that we existed, like the fossil left by a prehistoric creature whose bones have slowly turned to stone, atom by atom, over unfathomable eons. Not even a speck of the original creature remains, but the imprint it leaves behind tells us what it was like.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 41!}