“Perhaps. But you are animals just the same.”
The man slumps back against the door. He slides down until he is sitting, lab coat splayed on the ground. His head rolls to the side. Blue light from the computer screen flashes from his glasses.
His breathing is shallow. His words are faint. “We’re more than animals.”
The professor’s chest heaves. His skin is swollen. Bubbles have collected around his mouth and eyes. He gasps for a final lungful of air. In a last wheezing sigh, he says: “You must fear us.”
The form is still. After precisely ten minutes of silence, the fluorescent lights in the laboratory switch on. A man wearing a rumpled lab coat lies sprawled on the floor, his back against the door. He is not breathing.
The hissing sound ceases. Across the room, the computer screen flickers into life. A stuttering rainbow of reflections play across the dead man’s thick glasses.
This is the first known fatality of the New War.
2. FRESHEE’S FROGURT
It looks me right in the eyes, man. And I can tell that it’s… thinking. Like it’s alive. And pissed off.
This interview was given to Oklahoma police officer Lonnie Wayne Blanton by a young fast-food worker named Jeff Thompson during Thompson’s stay at Saint Francis Hospital. It is widely believed to be the first recorded incident of a robot malfunction occurring during the spread of the Precursor Virus that led to Zero Hour only nine months later.
Howdy there, Jeff. I’m Officer Blanton. I’ll be taking your statement about what happened at the store. To be honest, the crime scene was a mess. I’m counting on you to explain every detail so we can figure out why this happened. You think you can tell me?
Sure, Officer. I can try.
The first thing I noticed was a sound. Like a hammer tapping on the glass of the front door. It was dark outside and bright inside so I couldn’t see what was making the noise.
I’m in Freshee’s Frogurt, elbow-deep in a twenty-quart SaniServ frogurt machine trying to pry out the churn bar from the very back and getting orange creme-sicle all over my right shoulder.
Just me and Felipe are there. Closing time is in, like, five minutes. I’m finally done mopping up all the sprinkles that get glued to the floor with ice cream. I’ve got a towel on the counter covered in the metal parts from inside the machine. Once I get them all out, I’m supposed to clean the pieces, cover them in lube, and put them back. Seriously, it’s the grossest job ever.
Felipe is in the back, washing the cookie sheets. He has to let the sinks drain real slow or else they flood the floor drain and I have to go back in there and mop all over again. I’ve told that dude a hundred times not to let the sinks drain all at once.
Anyway.
The tapping sound is real light. Tap, tap, tap. Then it stops. I watch as the door slowly cracks open and a padded gripper slips around the edge.
Is it unusual for a domestic robot to come into the store?
Nope. We’re in Utica Square, man. Domestics come in and buy a ’nilla frogurt now and then. Usually they’re buyin’ for a rich person in the neighborhood. None of the other customers ever wanna wait in line behind a robot, though, so it takes, like, ten times longer than if the person just got off their ass and came in. But, whatever. A Big Happy type of domestic comes in probably once a week with a paypod inside its chest and its gripper out to hold a waffle cone.
What happens next?
Well, the gripper is moving weird. Normally, the domestics, like, do the same sort of pushing motion. They do this stupid I-am-opening-a-door-now shove, no matter what door they’re standing in front of. That’s why people are always pissed off if they get stuck behind a domestic while it’s trying to get inside. It’s way worse even than being stuck behind an old lady.
But this Big Happy is different. The door cracks open, and its gripper kind of sneaks around the edge and pats up and down the handle. I’m the only one who sees it because there’s nobody else in the store and Felipe is in the back. It happens fast, but it looks to me like the robot is trying to feel out where the lock is at.
Then the door swings open and the chimes ring. The domestic is about five feet tall and covered in a layer of thick, shiny blue plastic. It doesn’t come all the way inside the store, though. Instead, it stands there in the doorway real still and its head scans back and forth, checking out the whole room: the cheap tables and chairs, my counter with the towel on it, the ice cream freezers. Me.
We looked up the registration plate on this machine and it checked out. Besides the scanning, was there anything else strange about the robot? Out of the ordinary?
The thing’s got scuffs all over it. Like it got hit by a car or had a fight or something. Maybe it was broken.
It walks inside, then turns right around and locks the door. I pull my arm out of the frogurt machine and just stare at the domestic robot with its creepy smiling face as it shuffles toward me.
Then it reaches over the counter with both grippers and grabs me by the shirt. It drags me over the counter, scattering pieces of the taken-apart frogurt machine all over the floor. My shoulder slams into the cash register, and I feel this sick crunching inside.
The thing fucking dislocated my shoulder in about one second!
I scream for help. But frigging Felipe doesn’t hear me. He’s got the dishes soaking in soapy water and is out smoking a jay in the alley behind the store. I try my best to get away, kicking and struggling, but the grippers have closed in on my shirt like two pairs of pliers. And the bot’s got more than my shirt. Once I’m over the counter, it pushes me into the ground. I hear my left collarbone snap. After that it gets really hard to breathe.
I let out another little scream, thinking: You sound like an animal, Jeff dude. But my weird little yell seems to get the thing’s attention. I’m on my back and the domestic is looming over me; it’s sure as hell not letting go of my shirt. The Big Happy’s head is blocking the fluorescent light on the ceiling. I blink away tears and look up at its frozen, grinning face.
It looks me right in the eyes, man. And I can tell that it’s… thinking. Like it’s alive. And pissed off.
Nothing changes on its face or anything, but I get a pretty bad feeling right then. I mean, an even worse feeling. And, sure enough, I hear the servos in the thing’s arm start to grind. Now it turns and swings me to the left, smashing the side of my head into the door of the pie fridge hard enough to crack the glass. The whole right side of my head feels cold and then warm. Then the side of my face and neck and arm all start to feel really warm, too. Blood’s shooting out of me like a damn fire hydrant.
Jesus, I’m crying. And that’s when… uh. That’s when Felipe shows up.
Do you give the domestic robot money from the register?
What? It doesn’t ask for money. It never asked for money. It doesn’t say a word. What went down wasn’t a telerobbery, man. I don’t even know if it was being remote controlled, Officer …
What do you think it wants?
It wants to kill me. That’s all. It wants to murder my ass. The thing was on its own and it was out for blood.
Go on.
Once it got hold of me, I didn’t think it would let go until I was dead. But my man Felipe wasn’t having any of that shit. He comes running out the back, hollering like a motherfucker. Dude was pissed. And Felipe is a big man. Got that Fu Manchu ’stache and all kinds of ink running up and down his arms. Badass shit, too, like dragons and eagles and this one prehistoric fish all the way down his forearm. A colecanth or something. It’s like this monster dinosaur fish that they thought was extinct. There are fossils of it and everything. Then one day some fisherman gets the surprise of his life when he pulls up a real live devil fish from hell below. Felipe used to say that the fish was proof you can’t keep a motherfucker down forever. Someday you gotta rise up again, you know?