A NOVEL IN THE MAKING

I, Robot Soldier

Chapter Six

Previous Chapters

Chapter Six

We stood outside a long row of abandoned warehouses a hundred yards from the city’s shoreline.

I knew this was a sensitive moment for Amy, but I had tinkered with the Cat enough to leave him guarding the girl while I reconnoitered inside. I wasn’t expecting danger, but these vast caverns punctuated miles of the city’s coastline, offering suitable security for competing interests. They were perfect havens for enemy soldiers, who often found refuge in their interiors. Headquarters were frequently established in such places, providing natural urban camouflage against prying skyward eyes. Also, they could be easily interconnected by underground passageways that offered readily accessible opportunities for redeployment, not to mention overnight bivouacking before making tactical adjustments.

Even though I’d not encountered any in my years with Amy, enemy soldiers might still be nested within those walls. My greatest concern since finding Amy was not where all the humans had fled but where the enemy had gone. I assumed that humanity had escaped. Soldiers were another matter. I could only speculate that the war had moved on after I had fallen. Previously, companies or battalions were left to occupy and hold all conquered territory. During the time I lay immobilized in the shelter, something significant had happened. Apparently, humans and robots alike had abandoned the city.

I had no access to data that could address my speculations. The Mother Grid was inaccessible by wireless or plug-in. Mama G. had gone completely dark. Relegating my ignorance to inevitable uncertainty, I’d concentrated on raising Amy.

At the moment, my problem was having established Amy as the boss. Doing so was a strict requirement of my directives, although awarding her the title wasn’t necessary. My feedback modulation kicked in when she’d inferred her role and derived uncontained glee from her interpretation. Her pride had grown exponentially with time.

Now, I had to command her with no sound of bossiness resonating in my voice.

I could only do this because my Prime Directive overrode any concessions I would make to Amy.

Rule One: I could let nothing harm this little girl.

Still …

“Amy, I need to check things out inside.” I chose to use her given name rather than the soft one or the other, ingratiating title. This usually garnered her rapt attention, for her actual name was like cold water to the face. As she might say, It wakes you up!

“You and the Cat can stand guard outside.”

She scowled at my words, and I thought we might quarrel, but then she surprised me.

“One Shot, please. Call him Kitty Cat.”

“Okay, how ‘bout you and Kitty Cat stand guard outside,” I said.

“Sure thing!” she exulted, skipping over to stand watch beside the Cat.

I set my alert systems to maximum and opened the warehouse door.

I looked back to see Amy explaining their shared operational responsibilities to the Cat. For his part, Kitty Cat seemed to be attentive. For a moment, I could understand why humans might shake their heads in wonder.

The warehouse interior was dark and silent, and in the light shining from my eyes, it appeared to be in shambles. I held little hope for provisions, but experience has shown that humans often hide their barest necessities in secret places. This was especially true in wartime.

The whole time I searched the various levels, I scanned with activated ultra-sensors for human warmth or robotic emanations. Biologicals were absent. Insectoid scuttlings and small rodent patterings occupied my aural systems like white noise in the background. Through that sensorial haze came a sporadic, punctuated staccato of intermittent static. I found it difficult to pinpoint its origin, but I zeroed in on its stationary source with persistent echo-locating triangulation.

I was not overly surprised to find a fellow soldier immobilized on the warehouse floor.

I was, however, surprised by his condition.

He was severely damaged, lying mostly prone and slumped against a pile of rubble. The minor emanations he emitted came from his shattered, openly revealed heart. We robots didn’t name our fusion generators with that human referential. Our makers had. This fellow’s “heart” was leaking profusely. I knew there was nothing I could do to help. I had the necessary tools but no materials to work with. I knelt beside him and made a quick, clear connection to his data banks.

This roused him slightly and made him take notice of my presence.

Our subsequent exchange, the robotic equivalent of human conversation but faster, provoked an exciting upload of vital information.

“Who the hell is One Shot?” he asked.

“Never mind. Name yourself.”

“Ransom. Sergeant. RC2151667.”

“I’m not the enemy,” I said.

“I know.”

“How long have you endured?” I asked.

“You mean like this?”

“Yes.”

“8.791714 Q-ticks … or thereabouts.”

Human pranksters inculcated what passed for them as robot humor. Thus, we were programmed to add this stupid and ironic addendum to any temporal declarations we made, appearing to make them estimations only. In reality, we were exquisitely precise.

I acknowledged Ransom’s compliance with an electrical nod of appreciation.

“Not long after I found Amy,” I mused.

“Who’s Amy?”

“My ward. My boss. It’s complicated,” I said. “What happened to everyone?”

“You should know.”

“I was out for a while,” I said, injecting a composite explanation into his brain. His response was equally concise.

“The people were evacuated. The war escalated beyond our capabilities. Something snapped inside the enemy combatants. They began massacring humans.”

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“Nonetheless,” Ransom responded.

“What about our soldiers?” I asked. “You’re the only one I’ve come across.”

“I don’t know. We were massed together when I got hit.”

“Are there any human provisions around here?” I asked.

“What for?”

“For the girl, Amy.”

“Yeah, maybe, I don’t know.”

“Okay. Listen, Ransom. Your heart is busted up bad. There’s nothing I can do. I can let you bleed out … or not.”

“What’s the point?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“I can’t shoot, anyway.”

“Okay.”

“Time to die, I guess.”

After accomplishing the deed, I sat beside Ransom’s body with its dimming eyes and watched him fade away.

I barely noticed the little voice speaking right behind me.

“You killed him,” Amy said.

I turned to see Amy standing subdued and unusually quiet.

“You killed him,” she murmured again.

“No, sweetie. I didn’t.”

“I saw you.”

“You saw me shut him down. He asked me to.”

“I didn’t hear him,” she said.

“No. We were connected. You couldn’t hear us.”

“Why’d you shut him down?”

“He was wounded very badly. His heart was bleeding out.”

“Oh.”

She stood there staring at the broken soldier. I didn’t know what she was thinking until she spoke again.

“That might’ve been you, One Shot.”

“No, sweetie. It couldn’t,” I said. But she was right.

“Where’s Kitty Cat?”

“I left him outside,” she answered. “I was worried. You were taking so long.”

“Maybe you should go back to him.”

Amy placed her small hand on my shoulder, still looking fixedly at the fallen soldier.

“No, OS. I’m staying here with you.”

Amy wasn’t overly distraught by the soldier’s demise, but she was quieter than usual. She followed me on my further exploratory rounds without comment or direction. The upper floors allowed us more accessible passage, with late-morning light streaming through the windows. We found a few provisions in a recessed cupboard stocked with cans of food. Later, we discovered a few toiletries appropriate for Amy stashed inside a tiny, decrepit bathroom reserved for workers.

She thought the lady’s hairbrush was “a really cool find.” I was bemused by watching her repetitively stroke the dirty object through her rather greasy hair as she remarked, “Maybe there’ll be shampoo too.” Amy had learned some necessary ablutions from her mother, and these had become ingrained as obsessive but necessary habitual routines. Not only did these grooming habits soothe Amy, but they intrigued me to no end.

I hoped to locate more supplies for our impending journey beyond the city, but what we found would need to suffice.

Amy startled me as we were preparing to leave the warehouse.

“Should we do something for him?” she asked, pointing at the unmoving soldier.

It had not crossed my mind, which wasn’t surprising since we were implicitly trained to ignore our fallen comrades. This requisite condition for our robot army significantly improved efficiency and effectiveness. It also signified the sharp distinction between robotic warfare and the bloody mess previously made by humans.

“No. He’ll be found and recycled or restored. Easier if he’s left just as he is.”

Amy considered this.

“Where’d he go, OS?”

“What do you mean?”

“Him, Ossie. Where did he go?”

“He didn’t go anywhere.”

“Not to heaven?”

“Oh, that. No, sweetie, robots don’t go to heaven. That’s for people and animals. You know, like it shows in your books.”

“Oh.”

As we exited the building and walked toward Kitty Cat, who was faithfully standing guard where we’d left him, Amy asked me one more question.

“OS, will we ever find others like me?”

My various directives knotted my inclination for responding. I settled on the simple, demoralizing truth.

“I don’t know, sweetie. I hope so.”