Droids And Bots

Chapter 61

“I hear you, Dawn. But we don’t know how to stay alive in the wild. We’ve never even gone camping. Even if we make it out of the city, we’ll starve in the woods.”

“There are others,” she says. “I’ve seen people with bags and backpacks, whole families headed out of town. Some of them must have made it. They’ll take care of us. We’ll all work together.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. There must be millions of people out there. No food. No shelter. Some of them have guns. It’s too dangerous. Hell, Mother Nature has killed more people than machines ever could. We should stick to what we know. We gotta stick to the city.”

“What about them? They’re designed for the city. They can climb stairs, not mountains. Marcus, they can roll through our streets but not through forests. They’re going to get us if we stay here. I’ve seen them down there. Going door to door.”

The information punches me in the belly. Now, a sick feeling spreads through me.

“Door to door?” I ask. “Doing what?”

She doesn’t answer.

I haven’t looked down at the street since it first happened. I spent yesterday staying busy in a protective haze of confusion. Every whimper I heard from Dawn at the window just reinforced my need to stay busy, keep busy, head down, hands moving. Don’t look up, don’t speak, don’t think.

Dawn doesn’t even know about Mrs. Henderson at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Or the other ones with her.

I don’t take a deep breath or count down from three. I march over to the harmless-looking opening in the foil and look. I’m ready for the c*****e, ready for the bodies and bombs and burning wreckage. I’m ready for war.

But I’m not ready for what I see.

The streets are empty. Clean. A lot of cars are neatly parked up and down the block, waiting. At 135th and Adam, four newer-model SUVs are parked diagonally across the intersection, head to tail. The inner two cars have a gap between them just big enough for another car to squeeze through, but there’s a car plugging the hole.

Everything seems a little bit off. A pile of clothes is spilled halfway on the curb. A newspaper stand has been shoved over. A golden retriever lopes up the street, leash drag

ging. The dog stops and sniffs a strange discolored spot on the sidewalk, then pads away with its head hung low.

“Where are the people?” I ask.

Dawn wipes her red-rimmed eyes with the back of her hand. “They clean it up, Marcus. When the cars hurt someone, the walking ones come and drag him away. It’s all so clean.”

“The domestic droids? Like the rich people have? Those are a joke. They can barely walk on those flat feet. They can’t even run.”

“Yeah, I know. They take forever. But they can carry guns. And sometimes the police droids, the bomb-disposal ones on tank treads with claws—sometimes they come. They’re slow, but they’re strong. The garbage trucks …”

“Let me, just let me take a look. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

I watch the street for the rest of that second day. The block looks peaceful without the chaos of the city tearing through it like a daily tornado. The life of the neighborhood is on hold.

Or maybe it’s over.

The smoke from the plane crash still lingers. Inside the building across the street, I see an older lady and her husband through the dim haze. They stare out their windows at the street, like ghosts.

In the late afternoon, what looks like a toy helicopter putters by our building at about thirty feet off the ground. It’s the size of a doghouse, flying slowly and with purpose. I catch a glimpse of some weird gizmo hanging off its bottom. Then it’s gone.

Across the street, the old man yanks his drapes closed.

Smart.

An hour later, a car pulls up across the street and my heart leaps into my throat. A human being, I think. Finally, somebody can tell us what’s going on. Thank you, Jesus.

Then my face flushes and goes numb. Two domestic bots step out of the vehicle. They walk to the back of the SUV on cheap, shaky legs. The rear door opens and the two walkers reach inside and pull out a dull gray bomb droid. They set the squat droid down on the pavement. It spins on its treads a little, calibrating. The glint from its jet-black shotgun sends a shiver through me—the g*n looks practical, like any other tool designed to do a very specific job.

Without looking at one another, the three droids stumble and roll into the front door of the building across the street.

It isn’t even locked, I think. Their door isn’t even locked. And neither is mine.

The droids can’t be choosing the doors randomly. Lots of people have run by now. Even more were already out of town for Thanksgiving. Too many doors and not enough droids—a simple engineering problem.

My mind wanders back to the curious little chopper. I think maybe it flew by for a reason. Like maybe it was searching the windows, looking for people.

I’m glad my windows are blocked. I don’t have any idea why I chose to put up tinfoil. Maybe because I didn’t want a single bit of the horror outside to seep into my safe place. But the foil completely blocks the light that comes in from the outside. It stands to reason that it also blocks the light that leaks out from inside.

And more important, the heat.

An hour later the droids come out of the building across the street. The bomb droid drags two bags behind it. The domestics load the bags and the other droid into the car. Before they leave, one of the walkers freezes in place. It’s this bulky domestic with a big creepy grin permanently sculpted onto its face. A Big Happy. It pauses next to the idling smart car and turns its head left and right, scanning the empty street for movement. The thing is absolutely still for about thirty seconds. I don’t move, breathe, blink.

I never see the old couple again.

That night, the lookers fly past about once an hour. The gentle thup-thup of their rotors cuts through my nightmares. My brain is caught in a never-ending loop, feverishly considering how to survive this.