Robot Town

Synopsis

Robot Town by David Sloma

Things are getting bad in the city for humans. Hacked robots controlled by criminal gangs wander the streets looking for victims. Soon robots will take over-not all robots are bad, just most of them. A young man, along with his robot dog, and the old robot mechanic Mr. Kim flee to the unknown lands beyond the city, not knowing if they are running to safety or to another robot-controlled nightmare.

Robot Town

David Sloma

Copyright © 2013 by David Sloma

All rights reserved.

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June 2015 edition.

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davidsloma.com

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Published by Web of Life Solutions

weboflifesolutions.com

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Cover image by Mehran Khan

panelblack.deviantart.com

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This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form with out the written permission of the copyright holder. Short excerpts for reviews are acceptable.

Also available as a paperback.

DEDICATION

For those seeking freedom from the machine.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Alexx.

1.

The city was ruled by robots and the time for humans there was just about done. Belmont Brose took his time walking home from his meeting with Core Chemicals in the city center. He was a writer of instructional manuals and technical papers; the kind of dry, boring writing routinely ignored unless you really needed it.

He usually worked at home, in his small, prefab, pea-green apartment on the outskirts of the city. A place where some real trees still grew, and the nanobuildings, subways, and roadways had not grown to fill in every available space of vacant land. But, he knew the time was coming to leave his place, as his lease was up for renewal, and he had plans to get away.

He had these thoughts as the hum of the city filled his ears: electric cars with robot drivers thumping by, decrepit overhead trams moving cars full of human workers, and hundreds of aircars and flying robots zooming through the sky.

His boss, P. Klee – a silver-haired and barbed-tongued man, had wanted him to come into the office, because an important feature had been left out of the technical reference manual Belmont was writing. It was a feature to do with a robot-interface to one of Core Chemical’s products: a nano-sprayer device which shot nanopaint grey goo over a biological material, and within moments transformed it into plastic and dead, then dissolved it into subatomic particles, as it ate itself up into nothingness.

A robot machine would then grind up the microscopic plastic, and melt it into something new. Recycling at its extreme. Nanogoo it was called and it was The waste solution of the twenty-first century. At least that’s how it was being marketed.

Being a nature lover, Belmont was hesitant to explain this feature of the Nanogoo and besides, he’d never seen it in action. So, he was not even sure how it worked, and was not keen for a demonstration, if it even worked at all. But, he feared that it probably did work just like the engineers claimed it did, and probably very well at that. Goddamn it, he muttered under his breath as he heard his boss clear his throat. That was a sure sign that Klee was going to call on him any second.

Belmont, get in here! P. Klee bellowed out, pushing the stainless steel button on his massive desk that opened the door to his office with much more force than was really needed. With the door open, he had a clear view of Belmont sitting at his tiny desk. Great, thought Belmont, and braced himself for what was sure to be a straining encounter.

The polished chrome and green-frosted glass door with Klee’s name etched in the glass, swung open and clanged to a stop. The door was initially seen as a hazard by the building’s designers: it swung outwards into the hallway, and passers-by could easily bang into it, perhaps breaking a bone, or suffering a gash of the skin. But, with the development of new nanotech bone and skin mending solutions, such injuries were no longer much of an issue. They could be cured in a few minutes with a simple, topical spray-on solution, such as the one from Core Chemical.

Yes, sir, Belmont replied. He stood and walked over to the doorframe, pausing there in the in-between zone between the rooms, on the threshold. He was a bit sweaty because he had just run a fair distance back to his desk. He had taken a wrong turn in one of the pastel-coloured hallways, not being used to the layout of the office, since he barely came in there.

The soft lighting, uniform carpet, identical potted plants and soothing computer-generated music that oozed out from hidden speakers had put him into a light trance as he wandered the halls. The hallways all looked the same, and as he walked aimlessly around getting lost, he realized that he’d been away from his desk for a long time. He had hurried back to his desk, breaking a sweat as he backtracked from wrong turn after wrong turn, asking passers-by the way, just finding his desk moments before his boss called him over.

P. Klee took his meaty finger off the button and waved him over. Get in here. Sit down, we’ve got some talking to do. Then P. Klee folded his hands over his belly and sat back in his cushy chair.

Belmont stepped slowly into the room. He was always amazed at the large window his boss had in his office, with a majestic view of the sprawling city below, the polluted grey air with smoke rising from factories, churning out more and more robots daily, and the constantly moving traffic in the sky, on buildings, over tramlines, and on the ground.

The door began to close and hit him on the ass, pushing him in the rest of the way. He stumbled a bit, but regained his footing, cursing the tight-fitting dress shoes that he wore. The shoes were covered in tin and silver, made for the anniversary of humanity’s first rocket flight out of Earth orbit. They looked like Russian space capsules on the end of his legs, with USSR and the hammer & sickle symbol in red near his ankles. Small porthole windows with fake rivets were on the sides of the shoes and flames coming from rocket engines were on the backs. The shoes were certainly styling, but they left a lot to be desired in the grip, comfort, and functionality departments.

He saw that P. Klee was speaking to someone, looking at the empty chairs in the room. He figured the man must have had a transceiver earpiece in, or a bonephone on, or else he had finally gone crazy and was now taken to talking to the air. From the back there was no one in the chairs that he could see, no one with their head over the headrest. A midget maybe? His boss was known to have different sexual proclivities, so anything was possible.

He sat down in the chair in front of P. Klee's desk. There was a neon sign in a clear case on the wall. It spelled out Director in green, slightly flickering, flowing script letters. Belmont gulped: he knew he was in trouble now.

He glanced over to the chair next to him, and sitting there was a tiny robot, no more the two feet tall. The robot had a bare metal skeleton and face. It looked as if it were not yet fully built; like it was a miniature prototype and was devoid of a finishing skin or any aesthetic options.

Belmont, meet Dragoon, from robot plant X1. He’s here to help develop the new nanopaint for us. I wanted you to have a firsthand experience of it so you’d have no more excuses in getting your documentation finished. Dragoon is heading the group working to get this product out. The boss looked from Belmont to the robot and smiled.

Belmont was stunned, and opened his mouth, but no words came out; he just stared at Dragoon.

Dragoon spoke. My name is pronounced Dragöön, not Dragoon. I would prefer you address me as such, said the robot, in a synthesized, electronic voice.

P. Klee spit out some of his coffee; he was so shocked by the robot’s tone.

Belmont marveled at the smooth synthesized voice from the tiny robot’s throat, like warm honey, but agitated sounding. He wondered what other kinds of improvements were now being made in this latest generation of robots: so small, intelligent, aware of themselves, and with attitude. Also, quickly making humans redundant...

Shall we conduct the demonstration now? I am eager to get on with it. Dragöön’s head turned to face them, and its eyes glowed red from within, and met theirs.

Yes, yes. Let’s do that, the boss said and jumped up from his seat, his fat gut visible in a too-tight shirt; it looked like he’d swallowed a basketball.

He had never seen his boss move so fast before. Belmont spoke up, A-are you sure you are up to conducting the test? I mean, forgive me for saying so Dragöön, but it looks like you are not finished being built just yet. We could wait until you are more...complete. Or, we’ll arrange an alternative robot for the test. How would that be?

P. Klee’s eyes went wide as a full moon, and his big bushy eyebrows twitched up. Belmont, don’t insult our guest like that! Of course he’s ready for the test. He’s in great shape, aren’t you Dragöön? P. Klee smiled and began to sweat hard. Insulting a robot was a serious offence. As the boss, P. Klee was responsible and answerable for the behaviour of his employees while they were at work.

Dragöön laughed, and it was a deep clicking sound; like a broken fan down a deep well. I am sorry. I should have explained my appearance. His voice synthesizer purred, the sound waves twisting and vibrating. It was just this morning that my cosmetic skin was removed. I had damaged it during another trial involving some acid projectiles for the weapons division. But, the damage was only on the surface, as you can see: I am whole underneath.

The robot flexed its shining metal fingers and arms, a smile coming to the metal muscles in its face. I am fully functional and ready for duty. The cosmetic skin is mostly an artifact of courtesy for my human counterparts. The robot chose its words carefully, pausing before saying counterparts and causing its voice to utter the word with almost disdain.

It was known in certain circles of the technology industry that the intelligence and autonomy of robots was increasing at a furious pace. Many engineers and programmers who designed the brains of robots had long warned of the need for controls and manual overrides to be installed in the robots. The time when robots would become intelligent enough to think that humans were a liability to their mental superiority was not far off, and it might even have passed, many robots designers feared.

Well, go ahead, then, P. Klee barked at the pile of shiny metal. The sooner you get this over with, the sooner I can get back to some real work. He chomped on a sandwich and said under his breath, too quiet for anyone else to hear (except for a robot with super-sensitive hearing): The sooner you leave, bucket of bolts, the better.

My pleasure, Dragöön said, the words oozing like tar from its mouth, but, no one has called me a bucket of bolts for a long time, then it laughed a strange, mechanical laugh.

P. Klee froze in place for a moment, and his eyes bugged out, frightened that the robot had heard him. He swallowed hard. Dragöön nodded at him and smiled.

Let us begin. Dragöön leapt up from the chair and got up onto P. Klee’s desk with a bag of tools.

P. Klee' eyes bugged out of his head even more, and he reacted instantly: You’re not going to do that there! You’re not turning my desk to mush! Get down!

But, the robot had already taken a slab of thick metal from the equipment bag and laid it down on a corner of the impressive, old wooden desk. The desk was P. Klee’s pride and joy. There wasn’t another like it that had been made for the last fifty years, not since such a luxurious use of wood was outlawed; not to mention the expense, since wood was perpetually in short supply.

P. Klee snapped up the slab of metal and threw it to the floor. Dragöön let out an audible sigh and hopped down from the desk to stand on the carpet, his body making a clanging noise. P. Klee moved his chair over for a better look, all the while keeping his beady eyes on Dragöön