David Ring III - Stanley Duncan's Robot

Emergency. Android being attacked.

A sense of urgency flooded his system. “Change of plans,” he said, and then told the Fermi his new destination. Dan had known this sort of message would come eventually and had prepared accordingly. He called and rescheduled his appointment with the principal to later in the day.

The car passed through a dark and desolate part of the city, where few upstanding citizens dared to venture. An abundance of graffiti and trash were the first warning for most people to avoid the area. Man Kind, Machine Cold . Abandoned and dilapidated homes lined the road. Some buildings had been completely razed by fire, and only their concrete slabs remained. The riots had destroyed this part of town, but it had already been dying a slow death.

From what Dan knew about the area, it was once full of South Shore culture. Local stores and restaurants full of patrons, families developing and communities expanding — all had disappeared or closed down, unable to compete against a labor force that didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and didn’t get paid.

The Fermi stopped at a red light.

Thick heartbeats sent blood coursing through his body as Dan analyzed the world through the car windows. Large, multi-story fuse-farms where people went to jack out of the system for years on end seemed to be the only functional thing in this part of town.

Dan clasped his seat-belt buckle, ready to jump out at that moment and run at full speed to his destination. But who knew what would be there when he arrived? He needed patience and a clear mind.

His flesh crawled as he peered into the first-floor window of the six-floor, light-brown condo that had been repurposed into a fuse-farm. Four dorm-style beds were cramped into the small white room. A security guard rattling the chain link fence with a baton glared at Dan.

Not understanding the growing discomfort inside of him, Dan looked away. He could not fathom why the neighborhood had been allowed to rot. If RaceX were as powerful as he thought they were, then this wretched slum could be cleaned up and restored within a year. It could be more beautiful than it ever had been. So, why had they let this hellhole continue to exist?

He got that society had changed and the majority of people lived their lives almost entirely indoors, freed from a life of labor because AI had solved scarcity and provided everyone with the Basic Guaranteed Income. Because AI tirelessly worked the land and staffed the restaurants, nobody went without food. There was abundance in every category of human need. Looking at the building, it didn’t make sense to Dan that anyone would throw away their life. Everyone should have been happier, and yet they weren’t. Dissonance rose inside of his core — some crucial element of human existence was missing from Dan’s understanding of life.

The light turned green, and the car jolted forward.

Battered android heads were propped up on stakes, decapitated bodies were impaled on street signs. Spikes jutted out of their bodies. Devilish horns were impaled into another one. Signs nailed into chests deplored androids and cyborgs as abominations. There was something wrong with this world, he knew. There had to be a reason why Mask and RaceX allowed these horrors to continue. Why didn’t the MBTA — cyborgs — come here and clean this all up?

Dan gagged as his blood began to boil. He took out his phone and began to livestream. “Dan here. I just got a distress call. An android is being attacked. I’m on the way there right now.” He filmed the mutilated bodies. “What the hell is this?” Tears streamed down his face as he read through the chat messages.

These are from the robot battles

Android beatdowns.

OMG!

Coliseum losers.

Fun times.

This is where androids go to die!

The chat continued to burst with infuriating comments. He inquired into the useful ones, learning that somewhere around here was the Coliseum, the horrible place where the demon-cat had been programmed to kill. The android who was being attacked may have escaped imprisonment, and maybe there were others that needed rescuing. With his hand twitching at the door handle, he glanced up and down the streets, searching for his brethren, but they were empty.

A dull thud sounded, growing louder as the Fermi neared the location on the GPS. Rounding the corner, a figure swung a bat at a downed android.

Dan’s intestines felt as if they were escaping through his throat. “Faster!”

The man fled as the Fermi approached, leaving behind body parts strewn across the street.

“Follow him!” screamed Dan.

As the car raced by the dismembered body, he didn’t see any signs of life. The head was smashed nearly beyond recognition. Half a nose lay here, a few fingers there.

Dan felt sick, but he couldn’t slow down. Not that it would have made a difference. He wanted to, at the very least, be present to say goodbye. To mourn the android’s loss for a moment. To ease the passing of his soul — if such a thing existed — and to let it know that there was something out there that cared about its life. But if he did that, if he stopped to check, to say a quick prayer or to shed a tear, then that damned guy would be out of sight and gone. He’d be free to hurt and kill again. Dan couldn’t let that happen. He needed to stop him.

The bone-thin figure slipped into a narrow alley, impossible for the car to follow.

Gritting his teeth, hand on the door handle, Dan wondered what sort of person would be so depraved. Drugs , he thought, judging from the way his body looked, although Dan didn’t know what this man’s motive was for destroying an android. Craziness from the drug? But fuse didn’t make someone like this. The man didn’t seem to be interested in salvaging anything from the android; the head was far too damaged. Was this a paid hit?

“Stop!” Dan jumped out of the car as it was still moving. The few seconds it would have taken to come to a gradual stop would have been far too long. Slamming the door shut, he darted forward. Papers spiraled behind him as he jettisoned them and his special sandwich. With lightning speed, Dan chased the fleeing man, fury and sadness mixing in a high-octane boost of speed and emotion.

Filled with rage, he felt as if he could kill him. But the thought faded quickly. It wasn’t right; it wasn’t real — just a passing implication of his extremely emotional state. As he rounded the corner, the grungy man swung a wooden baseball bat at him.

Dan ducked, cursing himself for falling for such a simple trap. He knew the man was on drugs because only a doped-up fiend could have that sort of strength, the unchecked power that overrides the muscles with tendon-snapping and bone-breaking ferociousness.

The bat shattered as it crashed against the brick wall. Before the shower of splinters settled, Dan was on top of him, forcing him onto the ground. He restrained himself from beating the hell out of his crater-ridden face. “How could you do this?”

“Get off of me!” The man snapped his teeth like a dog maddened with rabies.

Dan moved just in time, grabbing him by the throat, effortlessly turning him over, and pinning the man’s hands together behind his back with his knee. “Who sent you?”

“Screw you!” the man muffled, rancid spit blasting out of his mouth.

Dan looked around. Though he did not see anyone, there could be an army of men with weapons waiting for him around the corner. If this was going to be his last moment on Earth, he wanted to use it wisely. He took out his phone and started livestreaming. “This man has brutally murdered an android.” Dan forced the man’s head to the side to get a good view of his face with the camera.

The druggie spat at the lens.