I started to feel like I needed fuel.

That meant eating some of the dried pellets I had in my jacket,

or did it? Did aI have to eat them? What if I didn't?

If I didn't eat them, I would keep feeling as though I were low on fuel, then I would begin to lose
energy, so yes, I needed to eat. My parents would've concluded at this point that I did need to
eat the pellets unless I asked "Is there anything else I can eat? They could think independently,
but it was a software program, so it hadn't been advanced enough. It was adaptable though, so I
planned to update it as time went on.

It was the dead of winter, basicly, the world's recharging period, and it was dormant. Most
plantlife was dead, and I didn't have the skills for hunting small animals, so the pellets it was.

I ate a few handfuls before zipping the pocket of my thick warming jacket closed.

A short distance later, I arrived at the solar recharging station. The bots had built it, so they could
obsorb solar energy without having to be out in the elements. Many of them had one at home
as well as an ultraviolet light powered by electricity, so they could basicly recharge themselves,
but there were some of these structures in common areas in case an emergency recharge was
necessary.

I bowed my head as I entered. The computer scanned my barcode, and the second door opened.

This was an idea my parents came up with. I was proud. I only had to prod them by asking,
"What could you use to make the barcode on me? They did some research using the common
information database and found that they could inject ink in to my skin using an old antiquated
body art method used quite commonly when humans like me lived more abundantly on this
planet.

I entered the recharging station. It was a pretty simple structure. A flat transparent roof covered
a large square room with bare, dull, grey walls.

There was less solar energy eminating from the sun in winter, and sometimes, the sky was
overcast with clouds. This might even go on for a couple of days. Today was the third without any
sunlight, but of course, some energy still got through. FOr some, this wasn't enough for them to
keep functioning, so they had to go dormant in order to obsorb the energy.

This was the risky part. Honestly, I wasn't supposed to exist. I am a human, but my parents are
robots. That's strange, because humans created robots, but they used the logic programmed in
to them by humans to conclude that humans used up to many resources and needed to be
disposed of, so they independently began exterminating us, but one scientist created a program
that caused robots to question their input. It was so simple, but in the case of my parents, it
made them question if it was really necissary to exterminate all humans.

They then did their own independent research, which was part of the software program, and
they concluded that humans and robots could live together, and that humans could even be
benefitial to them, so after a settlement was attacked, my parents foundout about it through the
common information exchange and came to see if there were any survivors. The humans were
learning how the bots exterminated them, so they were trying to outsmart them. My parents
found that one human couple had died attempting to save their male infant, me.

If any robots were functioning and felt the need to examine their surroundings, they would
immediately notice me. I didn't want to have to use the electromagnetic pulse generator my
parents had given me, but I would if I had to. It would overload the complex circuitry of all the
bots around me, and they would all be permanently disabled. This would cause the security bots
to do an investigation, and my parents might have to move me again. That would be twice in two
years. I was liking it here, so I wanted to avoid that.

There were two active bots across the room, but they were interested in recharging. They
weren't observing their surroundings. Between them and I were four dormant bots. This is likely
why the other two weren't actively scanning their surroundings. They didn't believe it was
necissary to used up the energy to scan for threats that weren't likely to exist.

I pulled a small computer from my jacket. It came with a cord to connect to the bots. Before the
extermination began, bots were often controled by humans, and even after it was in full swing, if
a human could gain control by physically connecting a device to it, they could neutralize the bot.
IN the beginning, some even had manual override switches which could be repositioned to
simply disconnect their powersource.

I wasn't so lucky today. I moved quickly uploading the same independent thinking software my
parents used in to the memory of the bots which were sitting dormant beneath the gloomy
winter sky.

When I finished with the dormant ones, I turned to the bots who were actively recharging. They
were closer to me now, and I could see that usable power levels were down below ten percent
on both of them. I aproached one. When I raised the service door on it's back, it didn't register
me, so I plugged in and went to work spreading my ideas, or maybe my virus.

That's what the bots called it. Some had appointed themselves as leaders and enforcers, and
they had received information of this software. That's why it couldn't simply be trasmitted
through the common exchange like other ideas and software. They called it malicious
programming. They wanted to permanently disable my parents for it. I had been prepared for
this day. They had told me time and time again that it would someday happen and that I was
their secret weapon. I just wish it hadn't been so soon. I've been trying to separate human from
machine in my mind. My parents were great robots, but the greatness in them came from a
human who programmed them. He was the personalityh that I remember my parents having. It's
hard, but I try not to have any emotional feelings about them now. They are just machines. They
may deserve respect, but they are not human.

As I left the recharging station, I accessed the common database and found some old audio
visual entertainment. That was something my parents didn't understand, and I honestly couldn't
explain it to them. Robots simply didn't need entertainment, but the walk back to the place
many humans would call home, it actually was a home for humans many years ago, would be
boring and empty of anything good to look at, so as I walked, I watched a piece of av art called
Seventh Heaven. These humans ran on one very specific set of programs, and they often talked
about how they must spread these programs to other humans to better their lives. This was a
task for them. It wasn't given by another human but was printed in a book. I hadn't seen many of
those, but they were an interesting way of communicating. Text was printed using ink on pieces
of paper. IF the document became long, many pieces were bound together in a stack known as a
book.

Writing seemed tetious, but antiquities always fascinated me. The book they received tasks from
was called the bible. Who could think that programming could be written on paper, viewed with
the eyes and obsorbed in to memory then applied. I knew it was possible. Robots could read
code that was printed out, but that often took thousands of pages. A storage device was much
more practical.

Humans however, had been obsorbing programming from books containing plain text and
images for thousands of years. There was no need for any coding, but I guessed it was like the
programming languages that robots read. The languages humans used were much more
compact though.

I stopped at the intersection where the designated travelway intersected with my row of
stationary parking areas. They were called houses by humans, and usually the paved strip in
front of them was vacant except for the occasional bot going to perform some kind of task, but
now, it and the outdoor parking area near where I lived was crowded with enforcers. I felt
threatened and insecure. I had been taught what to do in these situations. My parents had
taught me many independent survival skills.

Moving quickly, I left the area and went inside an old building. It looked like something from
Seventh Heaven. It even had the benches arranged in a large room, although the soft coverings
on them had been torn in many places and the batting used to stuff them had been falling out
for years.

I had been watching the program for years. Even as a small child, it caught my attention, because
it was at a very young age that my parents began teaching me about spreading the good
programming to others.

When I turned six, they asked me what I wanted to be called. I had been infant for so long. I liked
the name, but I thought for a while, did some research, and based on the job I was being trained
for, I chose Preacher, and from then on, that was what I was called.

The humans who delivered the programming to large groups of people in Seventh Heaven were
called by a few different names, pastor, minister, etc, but the word, preacher felt right to me. I
didn't have a loftyh position, and I imagined that I would just be plainly spreading the program
the my parents had given me to common people without claiming any real authority. Preacher
was used by humans on the lower end of the pecking order, and I somehow felt a connection
with them.

I might need to use my emp generator soon. The thought made me feel even more threatened. I
made sure my computer with the precious software was tightly sealed in it's feraday pouch.

The sky darkened, and the air became even colder. I needed to warm myself to avoid my own
systems abandoning certain parts of my body in order to maintain the vital components. I could
feel the sinsation in my fingers and put them in my warming jacket's pockets.
Finally, I decided to go back to the parking area. My parents had found a building bot to
construct a growing house for organic fuel which also sered to keep me warm in the winter.
Maybe it was still functioning.

Robots created heat through their own process, but if it got too cold, they generated more which
used much more energy. This was another reason for the dormant bots at the charging stations.

I arrived and saw that no enforcers were nearby. I looked up for detection drones, but there
were none. The sky had cleared, and I could see so many other suns now. The atmosphere
distorted them, causing their light to appear uneven in the sky, but I found this felt good. It was
like watching Seventh Heaven.

I ehtered and immediately was filled with an emotion my parents couldn't know. I was happy for
this. I learned from old av art that this was sadness or maybe even heartbreak. My parents were
gone. They hadn't just been disabled, they were being taken to be recycled. I cried mournfully,
sobbing loudly in the empty old house. I looked for my growing area and found it disabled as
well. I stood in the doorway of the now dark room and whaled. It was the only sound in the
house. It seemed almost unnatural in the quiet space, but then, there was another sound.

It was something being lifted, moving parts.

I dropped to the floor, and a burst of electromagnetic energy missed me by inches. It entered the
wall and reflected off of metal anchors used to hold the structure together. Sparks flew, and a
buzzing sound replaced my sobs.

I rolled out of the enforcer's field of view. It was hiding in the far corner of my warm safe place.

I quickly reached in to my pocket and pressed the button on my emp generator.

I heard nothing but silence and the sound of the wind picking up outside. The wall was smoking
where the electromagnetic weapon had hit it, and I wondered if it was on fire. I pulled out the
computer with the software on it. It had a light program stored on it, so I lit up the screen and
held it up. The enforcer was dormant in the corner of the room.

Walking through the parking area, I noticed two more enforcers, now permanently disabled,
stationed there to wait for me. They found my parents and knew about me. I had to leave.

I found warming jackets for my hands and one to put over my head. It was colder now, and the
wind was blowing. I had a long way to go. Maybe I would find a settlement of humans. Maybe I
would help them to spread the program. I couldn't know for sure, but anything was possible.