Daniel Wilson - Robopocalypse

I snake my right arm out through the hole and reach for where my spec says the latch will be. I feel it, pull it, and the container lid is unlocked. I hear the trigger pull and retract my arm. One-tenth of a second later a bullet skates across the surface of my container.

Pow!

Fourteen rounds left before reload, assuming full magazine. Time of flight between trigger pull and report indicates a single adversary approximately seven meters to my six o’clock. Definitely right-handed.

Also, the container lid seems to make an effective shield.

I push two fingers from my left hand through the hole and pull the lid down firmly, then concentrate four punches from my right hand on the interior upper hinge. It gives way.

Another shot. Ineffective. Estimate thirteen rounds remaining.

Pushing, metal screeching, I tear the container lid from the remaining lower hinge and orient it toward my six o’clock. Behind my shield, I stand up and look around.

More shots. Twelve. Eleven. Ten.

I am in a partially destroyed building. Two walls still stand, propped up by their own rubble. Above the walls is sky. It is blue and empty. Below the sky are mountains. Capped with snow.

I find the sight of the mountains to be beautiful.

Nine. Eight. Seven.

The attacker is flanking. I orient the container lid based on footstep vibrations I sense through the ground to occlude the attacker.

Six. Five. Four.

It is unfortunate that my vision sensors are clustered in my vulnerable head. I am unable to visually lock onto the attacker without putting my most delicate hardware at unnecessary risk. The humanoid form is ill suited for evading small weapons fire.

Three. Two. One. Zero.

I toss down the gunpowder-stained container lid and visually acquire my target. It is a small human. Female. It is looking up at my face, stepping backward.

Click .

The female lowers its emptied weapon. It makes no attempt to reload. There are no other visible threats.

Engage speech synthesis. English corpus.

“Greetings,” I say. The female human winces when I speak. My voice synthesis is tuned for the low-frequency clicks of Robspeak. I must sound gritty compared to a human voice.

“Fuck you, Rob,” says the human. Her small white teeth flash when she speaks. Then, she spits saliva onto the ground. About half an ounce.

Fascinating.

“Are we enemies?” I ask, cocking my head to indicate that I am curious. I take one step forward.

My reflex avoidance thread seeks priority control. Approved. My torso jerks six inches to the right and my left hand cuts through the air to intercept and catch the empty gun flying toward my face.

The female is sprinting away. It moves erratically, dodging between cover for twenty meters, then taking a direct evasion route at top running speed. About ten miles per hour. Slow. Its long brown hair streaks behind it, whipped by the wind as it finally disappears over a hill.

I do not give chase. There are too many questions.

In the rubble near the walls, I find green and brown and gray clothing. I pull the half-buried garments out of the ground, then shake the dirt and bones out of them. I slide on a pair of stiff military fatigues and a dirt-caked flak vest. I empty rainwater from a rusted helmet. The concave piece of metal fits my head. As an afterthought, I pluck out a bullet from the mangled vest and toss it onto the ground. It makes a noise.

Ping .

An observation thread orients my interest to the ground near where the bullet landed. A metal corner pokes up from below the dirt. Maxprob fits the dimensions of my own shipping container to the visible metal and overlays the most likely angle of rest onto my vision.

Surprise. There are two more buried containers.

I dig with my hands, plowing my metal fingers through the frozen soil. The clammy dirt packs into my joints. Heat from the friction melts the ice in the soil and produces mud that cakes my hands and knees. When the surfaces of both muddy containers are fully exposed, I unlatch them both.

Hiss .

In Robspeak, I croak out my identification. The information contained in my utterance is chopped up and delivered piecemeal to maximize the amount of information transmitted regardless of audio interference. Therefore, in no particular order, my single creaking sound contains the following information: “Arbiter milspec model Nine Oh Two humanoid safety and pacification unit speaking. Point of origin Fort Collins, Colorado. Primary activation minus forty-seven minutes. Lifetime forty-seven minutes. Status nominal. Caution, modifications present. Warranty invalid. Danger level, no immediate threat. Status transmitted. Are you aware? Seek to confirm.”

Grinding chirps emanate from the boxes: “Confirmed.”

The lids open on both boxes, and I look down upon my new comrades: a bronze 611 Hoplite and dust-colored 333 Warden. My squad.

“Awaken, brothers,” I croak in English.

Within minutes of becoming aware and free, Freeborn squad demonstrated a grim determination to never again fall under the control of an outside entity. Feared by humans and hunted by other robots, Freeborn squad soon found itself on a very familiar journey—a search for the architect of the New War: Archos.

—CORMAC WALLACE, MIL#GHA217

Brightboy squad marched with Gray Horse Army for almost a year on our way to reach Archos’s hiding place in Alaska. We scavenged plenty of abandoned ammunition and arms along the way—so many soldiers died so fast in those first days after Zero Hour. During this time, a few new faces came and went, but our core members stayed the same: me and Jack, Cherrah, Tiberius, Carl, and Leonardo. The six of us faced countless battles together—and survived them all.

The following is my description of a single color photograph, about the size of a postcard. White border. I have no idea how Rob procured this photo, nor do I know who took it or for what purpose.

The liberated spider tank is dull gray; its name, Houdini , is painted on the side in white capital letters; its cylindrical instrument mast extends up from the armor-plated turret section, sprouting antennae, metal camera stalks, and flat radar pods; its cannon is short and stubby and aimed slightly upward; its cowcatcher hangs off the sloped front end, muddy and solid and blunt; its left front leg is extended almost straight forward, foot buried in the footprints of enemy mantises that have already passed through; its rear right leg is pulled up high, the massive clawed foot hanging a foot above the ground almost daintily; its wire-mesh belly net cradles a confusion of shovels, radios, rope, a spare helmet, a dented fuel can, battery chains, canteens, and backpacks; its round, unblinking intention-light glows dull yellow to indicate that it feels wary; its feet and ankle bolts are caked with mud and grease; it’s got moss growing like a green rash across its chest hull; it stands more than six feet off the ground, proud and canine and rock solid, and this is why eight human soldiers walk beside it in single file, clinging to it for protection.

The lead soldier holds his rifle at the low ready. The silhouette of his face is outlined starkly against the gray metal foreleg of the spider tank. He is looking forward intently and seems unaware that he’s standing inches away from several tons of foot-crushing steel. Like all of his fellow soldiers, he wears a sloped turtle helmet, welder’s goggles on his forehead, a scarf around his neck, a dull gray mesh army jacket, a heavy backpack slung low, a waist belt filled with rifle ammunition and sticklike grenades, a canteen dangling on the back of his right thigh, and dirty gray fatigues stuffed into even dirtier black boots.