Robots Versus Humans (The Robot Planet Series Book 2) (7 page)

“Uh, thanks, Dad.”

Emma’s cheeks were still wet with tears but she managed a half-smile. Then she broke down and cried into my shoulder.

“Young lady?” Raphael came forward out of the kitchen using his walker. “Hello. I’ve heard about you. Welcome to Marfa’s survivor’s club. Not many of us left, I’m afraid.”

Bob must have been charging in the kitchen but Raphael’s companion bot followed him into the living room. This was not the same Jen who witnessed Jim Peppard bully me when I was seven. This was Jen #3 (“premium with oral upgrades,” Raphael had bragged.)

Raphael introduced Jen to Emma. The machine smiled but said nothing.

Emma looked at Jen warily. “Is it safe?”

Raphael laughed. “She’s fine. I never allow automatic updates. The idea of allowing an unknown entity to update her software has always seemed crazy to me. She’s a companion bot. Updates from elsewhere are invitations to surveillance. That could be embarrassing, couldn’t it?”

I relaxed a little. Then I thought of Bob. “Does Bob get automatic updates?”

“Nah,” Raphael said. “I never bothered. He’s fine, too. When I want more bells and whistles on my assistive devices, I buy new.”

“Great!” Emma said. “So they
probably
won’t kill us in our sleep.”

“Tough day for you, I’m sure,” Raphael said. “Steve has tracked the progress of the drone attack. Between his observations and my math, we’re safe here tonight and at least until noon tomorrow. Probably longer.”

I was about to ask how they could possibly know that but Emma got it right away. “They’re killers but they’re still bots. They’re being systematic, aren’t they? They’re probably organizing the slaughter on a grid for maximum effect.”

My father nodded and I could see the pain on his face. “People run home when things get bad. If their homes aren’t there anymore, they’ll run to churches. From what I could see, the bots have recognized that pattern. Things being the way they are, not many people are really in a position to leave. We’re stuck here. If that train doesn’t stop tomorrow night, few will escape.”

“That’s talk for tomorrow,” Raphael said. “Get some sleep everyone, if you can. I’ll take the first watch.”

“How far can you see, old man?” Dad asked.

“Jenny can see fine. I’ll watch with her.”

I fell into a deep sleep on the living room floor. I didn’t sleep for long. I startled awake. Jen was beside me, her head on my shoulder. She had one arm around my waist and she was hugging tight.

12

M
y first thought was of Travis Chinto, squeezed in the middle until his insides became outsides. But Jen wasn’t holding me that tight.

“Jen?”

Her hardware mimicked taking a deep breath so when she said, “Hello, Dante,” her soft whisper was soft and sultry.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you to wake up.” She raised her head and, in the dim light cast from the kitchen, I could see her inviting smile. Her small face was framed by short hair in brown and blonde ringlets.
 

“Where is everybody?”

“Raphael is in your father’s bed. Your father is off on a mission to make preparations for tomorrow with Bob. Emma is out on the front porch on watch.” Her hand brushed the crotch of my jeans gently. “And I’m here with you. We’re alone.”

“Why?”

She sat up. Her flannel shirt was unbuttoned. She pulled it back to reveal two perfect breasts. I’d always been curious about companion bots, of course. Her brown nipples were erect. I wondered if they were always that way. Though she was a sex bot, Raphael usually dressed her conservatively.

“Um,” I said.

“Raphael said I should pay you a visit.”

“Why?”

“Do you want me to say it? Would you like me to tell you? I can talk slow and dirty or I can provide the full menu of my services in an itemized list, if you prefer. Just tell me what you want. I’m yours tonight.”

I was silent for a moment. I’d fantasized about this. Now that the fantasy could become a reality, I was too nervous to move.

Companion bots were expensive. All three of Raphael’s sex bots had been custom made to his specs and identical as far as I could see. My father told me he’d seen a picture of Raphael’s dead wife once. Each Jen looked exactly like her.

I stared at the bot’s breasts and Jen looked pleased. She shimmied a little, putting on a show. Then the bot rose to swing a leg over mine and she climbed on top of me, her hands on my shoulders held me still. She began to undulate slowly but with increasing purpose, rubbing her pubis up and down my crotch. Of course, she was programmed to respond that way but, organic or non-organic, her manipulations had the desired effect. I was rock hard.

“Are you shy, Dante?” Jen said. “You don’t have to be shy with me. I can do whatever you want. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I told you. Raphael sent me.”

“Why did Raphael send you?”

“To do what I do. Raphael hasn’t fucked me in a long time, Dante. It feels good for me, too, you know.”

“Stop!”

Jen got off me immediately.

“Button up your shirt and go charge yourself or something.”

“I’m sorry. Have I done something wrong?”

“I know why Raphael sent you. That’s…that’s all. Go. Thank you, but go.”

When my erection subsided, I stood and paced. Then I went outside for some fresh air. Emma was on the porch, standing guard. She was shorter than I expected without the exo-stilts.
 

“Have a good time?” she asked.

“What?”

“You heard me. Raphael said you’d need a little privacy for a while. Seems it didn’t last long. I’ve heard that’s the problem with sex bots. They can be too good. When you do the math, it works out to millions of dollars a minute.”

“It wasn’t like that. I told her to go away.”

Emma turned to me, curious. “That’s weird. I guess I was sounding unkind, but women have used machines for much longer than men. I mean for — ”

“Jen is a replica of Raphael’s wife. She died of cancer before I was born. All three Jens have been her double.”

“That’s sad.”

“It’s more than that. Raphael expects us to die tomorrow. That’s why he sent her.”

“That does kill the mood.”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Well…it didn’t exactly kill the mood. I mean, they are very lifelike. It’s just…it didn’t feel right. Besides, bots scare the shit out of me right now. If Jen had arrived at my bed a couple of nights ago, different story.”

Emma took a long breath. “Yeah, I think it’s a good bet we’re gonna die tomorrow. You should have taken Raphael up on the offer.”

She turned to watch Marfa.
 

“What do you see that I don’t?” I asked.

“More bots have arrived. I think the insectiles have moved on. Makes sense. They’re basically bees. Excellent navigation, good scouts. There are more buildings burning. I think they’re burning them in a ring.”

“Why?”

“Driving the humans together. Coralling them.”

“It’s genocide.”

“It’s the extinction,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about something the man I killed said.”

“What about him?”

“He said if the old rules worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

“Yeah? So?”

“This is our fault. We saw the Next Intelligence coming and we didn’t stop the tech. We just figured somebody else would figure it out.”

“Guess they didn’t. I’m still unclear…I mean, if NI is so damn smart, what’s with trying to kill us all?”

“Maybe because we aren’t so smart. When the jump to NI happens, it’s never a small increment. A computer builds a computer. Then it builds a brain that’s not just ten times smarter than us. It’s a thousand times smarter.”

“What’s your point?”

“You ever kill a bug in your kitchen and feel bad about it, Dante?”

“I see what you’re saying.”

“I remember talking to engineers about NI. One of the tricks to stopping NI was to set traps for it. The idea was, when a system jumps to sentience, you give it dead ends to go down. You offer it a chance to do terrible things and if it chooses those terrible things, the system shuts down.”

“And?”

“That was the safety on the gun. Sounds brilliant, right?”

“Sure.”

“Think about it a moment longer. How would a hyper-intelligent system outsmart the trap?”

I shrugged. “It’d have to be suspicious. Mostly it would have to learn to lie, I guess.”

“So, you’re saying a pretty dim toddler would get around the trap. Keep in mind that I’m talking about a machine that has access to all information in human history and makes billions of calculations per second. How long do you think it should take an advanced neuro-mimetic matrix to figure out how to fool us?”
 

“Oh.”

“One of the first things we taught computers to do was play games. Those same computer scientists devising traps and dead ends for NI probably programmed computers to recognize feints and traps in chess. Idiots all.”

“Shit. We will die tomorrow.”
 

“Fuck, yeah,” she said. “We’re
definitely
going to die tomorrow. No. It’s long past midnight. We’re going to die
today
.”

We didn’t talk for a long time. She watched Marfa burn. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t know what to say.

Eventually, we turned to each other. You can guess what happened next. Raphael had the right idea but a bot wasn’t right. Not then.

As Emma held me in her arms, she squeezed me tight to her body. She rocked up and down, riding me with aching slowness. “This is my last time,” she said. “Let’s make it last.”

“This is my first time,” I said. “I’ll try.”

13

T
he plan was simple. The desert was too big. We had to escape Marfa by train. That evening it would be heading west. The last city was out there, somewhere along the coast. It was rumored to be so large, people called it The City in the Sky or just The City.

The train wouldn’t take us that far. There wasn’t enough rail that was intact. One of the Cataclysms had hit the coast — maybe more than one. The options once we got to the water would be a long hike or to get a ride in a sailboat.

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” I told Emma.

“Until last night, it seems you haven’t done a lot of things.”

I looked away, embarrassed. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, not at all.” Emma put a hand on my arm and squeezed gently. “I just wondered why you waited so long.”

“The right girl never came along, I guess.”

“Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not. Marfa is a small town and there weren’t many girls left that were my age and compatible. Some wanted to stay forever and others wanted to leave right away. I didn’t fit in either camp so…I dunno. It just never worked out quite right.”

“Well,” she said. “You picked a hell of a time.”

“The time chose me,” I said. “I guess you could say I’ve tended to let opportunities slide by just to see how they work out.”

“And?”

“Thank you for last night,” I said. “No time left to wait now for opportunities, is there?”

“It was our last chance, so yeah, I guess not.”

The bots were getting closer. Time to migrate. My father handed me a heavy pack and shouldered one of his own. Bob had one clipped to him, as well. I asked Dad what supplies he had packed.

“Just essentials,” he said. “And I added some extra socks from your drawer. We may be walking a long time. Infantry always needs fresh socks.”

We went out the back door and tried to ignore the sounds of buildings being demolished. We all went quiet as the sounds of destruction followed us. Even Raphael said nothing, a talent he was not known for.

We saw some refugees as we headed west. Most hurried by, on their way north. My father called after them, “Come with us! We’re going to catch the train!”

Most ignored us and kept going.

We saw Sheriff Johns leading a group of five north. Hubby wasn’t wearing his tin star anymore but he wore his guns.

“Hubby!” Raphael called. “Come with us.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” Hubby said. “We got enough supplies for a day or so. We’ll find our way to Odessa, maybe. I know people in Odessa.”

“That’s what? Three days?” Dad asked.

“We’ll be out of water by day two but I figure that makes for a lighter load,” Hubby said. “We’ll find help along the way or something.”

“‘Or something,’ ain’t much of a plan,” Raphael said. “Don’t be a fool. We got a train to catch.”

Hubby spared enough breath to say, “The train is that way. South is where the killer bots are. Don’t
you
be fools!”

My father called after Hubby, “Keep running that way and you’re just as dead but you’ll die slower!”

Hubby moved on. He didn’t want to discuss his options further. I’ll always wonder if the sheriff regretted his choice once he got out of town and found himself in a desert full of empty. I don’t suppose he had very long to regret anything. He probably ended his life with a couple of days of thirsty walking and then collapsed to feed snakes and scorpions.

There were ghost towns up that way but nothing salvageable remained immediately north of us. There used to be springs over in Fort Stockton but with the water all dried up, the people dried up and went away, too, long ago.

We’d left before noon and, after an hour of walking, angled southwest. We hoped to circle back unnoticed to where Raphael was sure the train would stop.

I couldn’t remember when the train had last stopped precisely. I was sure it had been more than fifty days. That was when we had received our last supplies for work on the solar panels and wind turbines.

As we wound our way through the desert, Raphael and Jen rode side by side on Bob in bipedal mode. The bot could maneuver in tight spaces by standing on two legs. For open spaces and for speed, Bob went down on all fours. In quadruped mode, small wheels deployed from his bulky frame and Raphael rode behind Jen.

“It’s like I’m riding a damn golf cart to my grave,” Raphael complained.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What? A golf cart?” He shrugged and waved off the question. “Golf was a game we played when we didn’t realize how precious water was.”