And now he had to find that one goddamned house. One house! And I can’t even do that! He stopped in a neighborhood that looked exactly like the fifty neighborhoods he’d just been in and sat on a tree stump. He disengaged his magnetic field and took off his helmet and gloves and struck a pose reminiscent of Rodin’s Thinker. It was sunny outside now, and the subdivision he was in was built on the side of a mountain. He was looking over water that sparkled like he’d never seen water sparkle before. He’d thought San Francisco was the most beautiful city in the world, but he had to admit now that it couldn’t hold a candle to Vancouver in July. Why hadn’t he come here before? He thought that maybe if his family were still alive, he might have brought them up for a vacation. The camping must be amazing.
They’re all gone.
Suddenly, the silence was replaced by something else. A hum—electrical—not far away. He turned to his left and saw the source: a street-cleaner. But it wasn’t cleaning the street. He’d never seen a street-cleaner that wasn’t cleaning a street before. It seemed to be coming toward him.
Alarmed, Rich stood quickly. “What the hell?”
The street cleaner stopped. What was it doing?
Suddenly, another hum. This time it was to his right. The same thing. A street cleaner coming toward him. He’d never noticed how ugly they were before. They must have weighed a couple of hundred kilograms with all of the equipment they had to carry—all of the cleaning fluid they needed to transport. They were modern—functional. The A.I. had designed them. Aesthetic appeal was apparently not one of the parameters in their design. They looked like robotic hunchbacks. A large head was always close to the pavement, held by a skinny, giraffe-like neck—always, except for now that is. Now, the neck held the head and its glowing red eye two meters into the air, craning it toward Rich.
“What do you want?” Rich took a defensive stance and the second robot stopped as well. They didn’t leave. They stood to either side of him while their electric hum sent chills throughout Rich’s body. Never had a robot approached him. It was unwholesome. Suddenly they were alive. No longer invisible machines. “Are you watching me?” Rich asked.
A third hum joined the fray. Another street cleaner began to approach from behind the first robot.
“It’s starting to get a bit crowded in here, don’t you think, fellas?”
Then salvation came. Two green balls of light cruised overhead.
“Oh thank God!” Rich put his helmet back on and lifted off into the air. “I’ll be seeing you guys around, okay? Say hi to everyone else in Freaky Robot Town for me, will ya?”
He ignited his magnetic field and blazed through the sky in pursuit of his two companions.
10
James and Thel set down in his front yard in the late afternoon sun. Old-timer was already there, looking pale and extraordinarily grim but relieved to see the safe return of his friends.
“Where’s Rich?” James asked him, concern in his voice. “He should have been the first one back.”
“He’s right behind you,” Old-timer responded.
At that very moment, Rich was disengaging his magnetic field and pulling off his helmet. “Had a bit of trouble finding the place.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” James replied, putting his hand on Rich’s shoulder.
“Screw that! I’m not okay!” Rich exclaimed, his lip quivering as he felt himself coming apart at the seams, his anxiety overwhelming him. “I’m not even close to okay! Everybody’s dead! Everybody’s dead!”
Thel pulled Rich close and let him sob on her shoulder. “We know, Rich. We know. Everyone’s gone.”
James watched as Rich expressed the emotion that the rest of the team was trying to quell. How could this happen? He turned to Old-timer, who sat on the lawn and looked off into the distance, thousands of miles away. He knew he didn’t have to ask, but he did so anyway. “All gone?”
Old-timer pulled himself out of his trance just long enough to look up at James, with a face empty of the characteristic joy that James had always found there. “Yes.”
“There’s something else,” Rich began, pulling himself away from Thel, “Street-cleaners. They just surrounded me…a couple of blocks from here!”
Rich’s words momentarily stunned the others. Old-timer and James shared looks of surprise.
“What do you mean?” Old-timer asked.
“I was resting a few blocks from here, and street-cleaners—three of them, came up to me, one by one, and just…watched me.”
“What the hell…” Thel began but let her words drift away in the breeze as she saw another street-cleaner suddenly appear at the end of the street.
It floated slowly toward them and set down only a few meters away from James’s house, small legs unfolding from the underbelly of the mechanical monster. It was only the first robot to appear as, slowly, the last humans on Earth were surrounded. One by one, nearly a dozen street-cleaners appeared and took their places in a semicircle, facing James and the others.
“What’s going on?” Old-timer asked, frozen.
“I think it’s your cologne, Old-timer. I’ve been meaning to tell you, it’s very attractive,” Rich suggested, his voice quivering.
“They’re just watching us. Why don’t they do something?” Thel questioned.
“You can’t assign motives to them, Thel. They may behave as though they’re alive, but they’re just machines,” James answered. “It’s the A.I.—it’s looking for us,” James continued, his words like ice.
“The A.I.? How do you know?” Rich asked.
“There may be no people left, but there are plenty of robots on the streets. One of the A.I.’s functions is to watch over all of the other machines on Earth—sort of like a robot nanny. If the A.I. were damaged or destroyed, the robots wouldn’t function. It controls all of them.”
“What does it want?” asked Thel.
“Right now, I’d say it wants to communicate with us. The street-cleaners aren’t equipped with any sort of com device, so the A.I. can’t speak to us through them. Unless my guess is off, however, I think we’ll be having company very soon.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Rich.
“Keep them distracted,” James ordered his three companions. “I’m going to leave a message for Djanet.”
“Are we going somewhere?” Old-timer asked.
Suddenly, the sky was filled with an enormous dark shape. A disk twice the size of James’s house came to a halt, its rapid approach and sudden stop created a deafening roar as the wind was torn violently.
“Just about crapped my pants,” Rich uttered, swallowing back his fear.
“Yes,” James replied to Old-timer. “We are going somewhere.” He walked into his home and remained there for over three minutes, an amount of time that seemed like an eternity as his companions faced the ominous metallic entities around them.
Old-timer stood nearer to Rich and Thel, hoping his presence would calm them. In all his years, a street-cleaner had never approached him. He’d never noticed one watching him before. Never marveled at their demonic red eyes.