[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 20

^{Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19}

The sharply dressed man who’d processed us on our way into the base was waiting for me in the cafeteria. His short brown hair, immaculate the other night, was now visibly mussed. His shirt was also partly untucked, and I soon figured out why when I spotted the flask poking out of his pants pocket.

I collected what the military considers breakfast on a beige plastic tray, then sat down across from him and introduced myself. “With that thing on your head it’s not like I’d forget you. You shouldn’t reveal your secret identity so easily, villains will go after your loved ones to hurt you. That’s like superhero 101.”

I let it slide because he was plainly a little bit drunk. I asked him if morning drinking is really kosher on base. “Not even a little bit!” He laughed. “They don’t care though. It doesn’t matter. None of this-” he gestured at everything around him. “...is gonna matter in a day or two.”

I leaned in, advised him to keep his voice down, then asked what he meant. “What, you don’t know? There should be a standard issue emergency radio in your tent. Didn’t you turn it on?” I admitted I was otherwise occupied last night and begged him to fill me in.

“Remember the power plant under metal occupation?” I nodded. “Destroyed. Air strike, just this morning.” I shrugged and asked what the big deal was. “The strike was nuclear.” I stared, frozen in place for a moment letting that sink in. He giggled to himself, then took another swig from a glass of clear fluid I was now pretty sure didn’t contain water.

“They took out the captured mines first, then the power plant. All over the country, mines and power plants have been overrun with metal. They also went after robot factories, those were high priority targets. Now radioactive cinder for the most part, though I don’t doubt they’ve missed a few.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it only got worse from there. “I’m sure our government has good reasons for resorting to-” he grabbed my wrist and glared at me. “You don’t get it. It’s not us. Those bombs aren’t ours! The virus afflicted all robots, everywhere. China was hit a hundred times worse, having invested a lot more in automation. And I’m sure you can guess what Japan looks like right now.”

My guts churned. Was he fucking with me? If not, it meant that on top of everything else, the world was now embroiled in nuclear war. “They think it was us. We think it was them. To be fair we have sound intel to the effect that the virus originated in the US, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a terrorist cell or something.”

I rubbed my chin, thinking out loud about the hacker group I saw at the protest. “It’s possible I guess. At this point it doesn’t really matter who started it, a lot of people are going to die. At least they’re only targeting power plants, mines and factories to prevent the machines from replenishing their numbers. No credible reports of strikes on population centers yet.”

Slim comfort. I still couldn’t absorb the magnitude of it. Nuclear war in my lifetime! I could only imagine what those countries with many times more robots endured during the first few hours of the attack. No wonder they’d leapt to conclusions and lashed out. In all probability the death toll in China alone now numbered in the millions. Tens of millions, maybe.

“I’m glad we made it to safety when we did” I admitted, breathless. He turned and looked at me like I’d just told the world’s funniest joke. “...What? This is a military base” I said. “I can’t think of many places safer than this-” He stood up and instructed me to follow him.

I peppered him with questions along the way as to whether it was really okay for a civilian to enter the largest single building on base with him. “Everybody’s got bigger concerns for the moment. The world’s coming to an end. You think I give a shit if they fire me? Anyway, I know you work for Evolutionary Robotics. You might appreciate this.”

The mention of my employer was startling. I asked how he knew about that. “It was in your chip. You’ve also got one of their premium implants in your brain, it turned up when we scanned you for head injuries.”

I could believe that my employment details were tucked away in my subdermal payment chip someplace without my knowledge, but I assured him that I have no implants in my brain that I know of.

“That you know of. There’s the operative phrase. Of course you don’t, it’s the type that suppresses unwanted memories. You must’ve been some kind of basket case who paid big bucks to have them stick that thing in your grey matter to help you forget something. I kinda figured it was something like that on account of your weird mask.”

I wracked my brain searching for anything to corroborate what he was telling me. But of course if it were true, they would’ve erased any memories of the purchase and the subsequent surgery. So that I could live out the rest of my life oblivious that anything had been done to me.

“Is there a land line? Some way I could call family?” He gestured dismissively. “Cell towers are all down by now. Internet’s mostly fried, a generous sprinkling of nukes will do that.” I despaired that I had no way to know what’s become of my parents. Or Ty.

If only I’d called them sooner! Though they hopefully had the good sense to shut off their phones before I did anyway, and with any luck were in a bomb shelter or refugee camp by now. The night before had been this long, manic blur during which there’d been no time to focus on anything other than immediate survival.

When we entered the looming cubic structure I was surprised to find there was no security to stop us. “Off drinking, same reason I was” he explained, taking another sip from his flask. He flipped a series of switches and, in stages, the interior lights revealed what I immediately recognized as a fabricator.

Identical to the one in the cave lab by the looks of it. It was news to me that Evolutionary Robotics entrusted a prototype to the military so soon. “The only one of its kind in existence” he boasted, drunkenly swinging his arms wide as if presenting it to some unseen audience.

I began to correct him, but realized it meant he didn’t know about the one in the cave. That set a series of cogs turning in my head. “State of the art, bet you’ve never seen anything like it” he carried on. I pretended to be dumbfounded to please him, and it worked.

“It’ll make anything we ask it to. Tanks, jeeps, APCs, trucks. Most of the vehicles you’ve seen so far were made by this thing. The quality is outstanding. But of course, you realize what this means.” I shook my head and invited him to explain.

“...Really? I thought you were supposed to be bright. What did you do for Evolutionary Robotics? Sweep the floors?” I ignored my irritation and urged him to spill the beans. “...Do you really think they’ll let something like this fall into metal hands? You realize, with this thing and a steady supply of metal from captured mines and refineries, we’d no longer be looking at a war measured in years, or even a decade. It could continue indefinitely.”

He gave me a moment to soak in the severity of it before continuing. “It’s not just a question of making more domestic models. They can do that with whatever factories are still standing. With this they can make high end military robots, the real heavy hitters. As many as they want. They can make autonomous tanks, aerial drones, weapons, munitions, whatever. If they get ahold of uranium they could even make their own nukes.”

Recalling the difficulty of putting down even a single military humanoid, I shuddered at the thought of millions of them marching out of the fabricator in front of me should it come into their control. “That was the original idea behind this project. A fully autonomous, self sustaining war machine that could continue defending the mainland US in the event that our conventional forces were defeated.

It would never stop fighting, never stop making more drones, more tanks, running on centuries worth of nuclear fuel and at least several decades worth of metals still down in those mines. This fabricator was to be the first of many, most of them underground to shield them from nuclear attack.

Once set into motion, the eventual destruction of whoever we were at war with would be effectively guaranteed whether it took decades or centuries to accomplish. Good old American military might, waging war on our enemies from beyond the grave.

It’s more of a deterrent than nukes if you think about it. Makes true defeat impossible for us, and absolutely ensures annihilation for anybody who tries. Once the rest of the world got word of this, we figured nobody would want to be the idiot who kicks the hornet’s nest for fear that what comes out of it would never stop coming.

‘Course it never got that far. This is the only one that’s been built, and our best understanding is that only China is anywhere close to replicating it. I’ve seen spy footage of what looks suspiciously like the early stages of this technology in development. If we know about theirs, I promise they know about ours. I give it a week at most before they nuke it.”

My blood ran cold, my assumption of this base’s safety evaporating in an instant. “You’ve got to tell the refugees! Load them into trucks, take them-” He whipped around in a flash of sudden anger. “Take them where? Didn’t you listen!? Any place remotely near a power plant, mine or factory now glows in the dark.

Back to the city? What, to be shot up by robots? Even if all they do is set off an EMP, there’s still a lot of ionizing radiation that goes with that. You’d receive a lethal dose without even realizing it, then die slowly over several days.” I asked him how we’re going to survive then. He slowly shook his head at me while slurping down the last of the flask’s contents.

I left him there quietly giggling to himself and returned to my tent. There I found Helper dressed up in clothing she must’ve taken off corpses, twirling about and looking at herself. “Which one do you like better?” She held up a tattered blue dress with blood on it. “This one? Or this one?” In her other hand she held a green dress with some sort of pattern around the hem.

“You can bring both.” I snatched the dresses from her and stuffed them in my bag. “Bring them where? Are we going on a trip?” I didn’t answer, hurriedly packing everything I’d gotten out of my bag the night before back into it.

Helper busied herself cooking some of the rations they left us on a little camping stove. I told her I already ate breakfast. “Oh, these are for me.” I asked what a machine needs food for. She put her hands on her hips and replied with discernible frustration.

“I have biological parts too, yanno. The bacterial gel isn’t just for show. I get some of my power from an integrated microbial fuel cell that can break down any organic matter I feed into it, and generate electricity from that reaction.

It’s not enough to run off of exclusively, but it lets me go much longer between charges. Do I ‘need’ it? I guess not, strictly speaking. I just couldn’t resist including these little guys in my design. Have you ever looked at them under magnification? They’re simplistic, but interesting and cute.”

I apologized for assuming, and her expression softened. “...If you want I could fix a second serving. I’ll put extra love into it.” I assured her that wouldn’t be necessary, and finished packing my bag just as Madeline once again poked her head in through the tent flap unannounced.

“Just look at this” she scolded. “Now you’re playing house with it.” I suppose it did appear that way. Helper wore flip flops, sky blue gym shorts and a faded yellow tank top with a tacky little apron draped over it. “Madeline!” Helper called, eyes glowing brightly. “Are you hungry? I’m making digestible biomass.” Has a nice ring to it, I thought. They should use that in the marketing.

Madeline declined the food and instead asked to speak with me outside. I met her just outside the tent, where she laid into me. “What you’re doing is sick. If it were really just something you built to get your rocks off, I could understand that. But you have feelings for it, don’t you? As if you two are a couple? You’re not, that’s perverse. Helper can never be your equal”.

With my snugly gloved hand, I carefully pried her own hand free of my shirt. “Neither can you” I flatly stated, then told her to pack all of her things by tonight if she wanted to live to see next week. Her expression went from judgemental to inquisitive, just like that. It’s amazing how quickly her demeanor changes when she finds out you have information she wants.

I told her about the second fabricator. Then about China and the recent nuclear strikes, though at first she thought I couldn’t be serious. “Straight from the horse’s mouth” I insisted, while patiently watching her go through the same stages of realization and acceptance that I did an hour or so earlier.

“Then we go back to that mountain. To the bunker, or whatever it is you said is down there. Helper said she can open it.” I nodded and told her to let Lars know I was planning on leaving tonight. With that, she ducked into the adjacent tent and a minute later I heard Lars shout “WHAT!” followed by muffled chatter.

Lars then burst into my tent looking for confirmation. I glanced over at Helper, humming happily to herself as she gobbled down the contents of the ration package, then took Lars outside. Once there I told him the same thing I told Madeline.

He sucked air through in his teeth, staring into infinity. When I asked him if he was alright, he laughed. “No, and neither are you. Nobody’s gonna be alright. This is really it. Never thought I’d see the day. My parents lived through the cold war, Dad never shut up about it. I always thought of nuclear war as a relic of the past. Not something that could still happen. Fuck.”

I tried and failed to talk him down as we headed along the outer fence in search of his car. As we walked, I spotted sharp shooters in guard towers picking off robots approaching the compound from all directions in groups of between three and ten.

---

^{Stay Tuned for Part 21!}