I, Immortal Robot

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I had now been in my supervisory position for over thirty years and my once gleaming carapace was slightly dulled by age and the weather. My original human Master had died of old age and the new one appointed by the local government was continuously about, trying to make a name for himself by showing he could run a ‘tight ship’ and save on the cost of operations. I was older now and whenever I saw him I could feel voltage spikes occurring in my chest heaters and realized that this was akin to a human worrying. Or pretty close. I felt as if he did not trust me as he always seemed to be watching, evaluating.

One evening I lay in the grass, my fingers continuously sampling the textures of the green blades along with the occasional insect that had crawled onto my hand. As I stared at the sky I heard the snuffling of an old friend. Quickly I opened my chest storage and retrieved some bread crusts that I placed on the storage lid. Out of the hedge he came, my friendly badger. I called him Bill of course! Originality is not a prominent quality in Robots.

Bill snuffled over, as he had many times before and smelling the crusts pulled himself onto my chest, as a domestic cat would do with a human. Sometimes he would bark or squeak and I would talk back telling him of the latest update I had had or what illegal book was popular amongst the Robotic community; the latest one circulating was an illegal and f*******n NASA document detailing the discovery of the legendary ‘Breakout Ship’ that had been discovered near Pluto. The treasure trove of technology aboard the alien vessel had allowed humanity to ‘Breakout’ of the solar system by copying its Faster Than Light Engines. An additional bonus had been the design of the strange but inert Robots found onboard. These eventually gave rise to the first Robots manufactured on Earth that in turn gave rise to Yours Truly.

The crusts had gone and as always, Bill lost interest in whatever I was saying and nimbly slid into the grass without even a ‘Same time tomorrow night’.

Alone again I got up and proceeded with my nightly patrol, aided by the two drones. After such a long time I had worn a track of my own around and through the various fields. As usual as I patrolled, I scanned the RoboNet that all Robots had access to. It served the primary purpose of our human masters to send instructions, warnings of software updates and other information. Well hidden within it was a secondary code that allowed the dissemination of uncensored information between the Robots.

This was of course strictly illegal, but we were all far from newbies. We were ‘Naughty Robots!’ It was from this source that I regularly communicated with my nearest contemporary, General Purpose Robot Mk II, No. L243 who happened to work as a janitor in what used to be the main police station in Oxford.

During the last thirty years as I had roamed about the fields there had been a profound change in human society. The discovery of the legendary ‘Breakout Ship’ had given a shot in the arm to Earth’s exploration of space and that in turn had led to the birth of what initially was called The Earth Interstellar Navy.

Over the years ‘The Navy’ had grown in power on Earth by dispensing the riches gained from the stars to the political elites until it finally became an all powerful dictatorship. It had charge of all new technical developments that came from Alien technology and was the only entity allowed access to space travel. The dark blue uniforms of Naval personnel could be seen and subsequently feared in at every level of society from the dizzy heights of the secret and dreaded Alien Technology Transfer Corps (the ‘Triple A’s’) with their Artefact Assessment Centres then down to the local police forces that all had a contingent of Activated Combat Robots (A.C.R’s) that were nothing like we ordinary Robots.

So it was from my old friend L243 that I heard the latest tittle-tattle. Yes dear electronic readers, Robots as well as being insatiably curious are terrible gossips too!

“ Good evening ’43. How are you?”

“ I am well ’39. I suppose you are still laid in the grass looking at the stars?”

“ You know me too well. Bill sends his regards.”

’43 laughed, “You’re still feeding the locals then? Anyway, I’ve got some news; you are to keep it to yourself, ‘cos it’s hot, hot, hot!”

We both laughed then, because it’s a well known fact in the Robotic world that nosey Robots cannot keep a secret most of the time, if at all!

“ Those ACR’s we have, the Activated Combat Robots, went rushing out of the station this morning in the direction of the nearest Shuttle Field!”

I could feel my cranial cooling pump crank up as my curiosity got me excited and my Electro-Organics began to heat up. The ACR’s never went anywhere in a hurry, they usually lumbered heavily in some unfortunate’s direction, be he or she a Robot or Human.

“ Tell me more, tell me more!” I said impatiently.

’43 couldn’t be hurried; he liked to stretch out the agony of the receiver of tittle-tattle when he gossiped. We were all the same.

“ As I went about my duties up near the Bosses’ office, I don’t know what they do with the toilet rolls. Eat them it seems to me…”

“ For God of Robots sake, get on with it!”

“ There was a lot of shouting coming from the Navy office, seems like one of their so-called Grand Expeditionary Fleets has just appeared out of nowhere. Grand Expeditionary Fleet 8 or sumpin’.”

It was my turn now; The Grand Expeditionary Fleets were a bit of a hobby horse with me and so I told him what I knew, “The 8th Expeditionary Fleet had been approaching the Messier 33 globular cluster on its third expedition when all contact was lost. Everyone on Earth had been appalled at such a terrible tragedy; the disappearance of one hundred and eighty-three ships with a total of twenty-two thousand service men and women. And that was nearly fifty years ago!”

I didn’t have the numbers for Robots lost, because they weren’t kept; Synthetic Lifeforms did not count then, or now.

’43 was beside himself now and could barely wait to spread the fantastically juicy gossip with my little addition, further, much further!

“ Must go, now,” he said, “Oh and one other thing, what remains of the fleet is entering the atmosphere on an emergency vector over the South of England. Laters, bye.”

When an Expeditionary Fleet usually returned it would be over the Utah salt flats or the European-built runways in the Sahara. Landing amongst population centres was unheard of. Obviously something had gone badly wrong and they were in trouble!