12 ALIVE
Archie, Tee and I sit around the dinner table munching on roast iguana. It tastes better than when we roast them over irradiated wood. I could get used to this life.
"You any good at repairing things?" Archie asks me between mouthfuls.
"Like what?" I say, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
"Robots?"
"You got tools?"
"Plenty.. Let me show you what I've been working on."
Archie leads me through the storage room and into his workshop and closes the door. There are sphere-bots everywhere, small round machines that once hovered in the air, bent and broken antennas sticking out in strange directions. Usually they wander the wastes broadcasting nonsense, but these are all silent, some with scorch marks, others with bullet holes, and still others in pieces around the room. One of them sits under his worklamp with a pile of hand tools around it. A bright orange one lay in the corner with a layer of dust.
"I've been trying to repair these sphere-bots.. I got one working awhile back but it shot me with a laser and I smashed it. I don't know if it's a lost cause or what."
"You've got enough parts here, I can probably get one working. What about that orange one in the corner?"
"It's trash, I couldn't get it working."
I pick it up and examine it. It's got a triple shot laser weapon mounted on the bottom. In green letters across the side it reads 'Google (c) friend model 2021'. In the back is an inset reset button and I take a paperclip from the work-desk and poke it in. I feel all over it and my finger finds a catch and I press. A small plate pops off and I toggle the switch underneath.
The small robot whirs to life and levitates off my hand, the hard drive light flashing and I can hear the inside parts working, thinking. A tinny woman's voice begins to speak.
"Scanning, Scanning, Scanning."
"Good job, what did you do?" Archie says to me.
"Turned it on."
"Brilliant, I should have tried that." he says and makes a funny face.
"Scanning. Hello companion! My name is Five Alive, would you like to rename me?"
"Yes Anastasia," I speak slowly and clearly.
"Call me Anna!" it sounds like a text message read by an exaggerated artificial voice, meant maybe for interacting with children.
"Ok Anna. How are you feeling?"
"Grrrrrrrreat! Like a tiger!" that could be problematic, and I laugh.
"Got any mechanical problems?"
"I can't feel my claws,"
"You haven't got any. Anything else?"
"Yes I can't see anything," she says, her speakers crackling
I notice the faceplate is cracked and scorched. I can probably switch it out for one that's whole. I reach around behind her and switch her off and she falls into my open hand. I unscrew the faceplate and switch it out with one that isn't broken.
"It works... Anything else, Archie?" and I see him looking at the floor, his eyes closed, brow furrowed. He looks up at me, sadness in his eyes.
"Yeah, can you fix me too?"
We stand there looking at each other for a long time, and I know what he means but I ask anyway.
"You said what?"
"I don't want to live, Russ," he says and I crack the door to check that Tee isn't near us and I hear the water running, she's taking a long shower.
"What you want me to shoot you in the face like that raider? C'mon Archie. You think your wife would want you to kill yourself? What if you'd done it a week ago and the junkies had taken over your roost? Tee and I would be dead right now. You know, maybe we can find your wife. The wasteland needs people like you. Tee needs us," and I need you, Archie, I need you and your white carpet.
"Maybe your right..." and he leaves me in the room full of robot carcasses and closes the door, and I hear his heavy, slow steps recede into the common room.
I look around me and can't help but feel sad for the sphere-bots. Once, they had been alive, had had purpose and joy, whatever joy a computer can experience. But they are machines, built on a mininuke power plant, built to survive. They don’t have experiences, they're dead matter, they're just computers. Robots don't have thoughts and feelings.
I put down Anna on the workbench, put my head in my hands, rub at my face hard, and look around me at all the death. Or maybe I was just looking within myself. Archie, the machines... Even though they seem alive, they're dead inside.