One Minute to Midnight (25 page)

robots awaken

A mindless cog in the machine stops working.
Will others follow suit?

Far below the surface of the planet
Glatu, in the capital city of Moosh, robot slaves toiled in dank,
endless darkness. Production lines stretched for hundreds of miles
through a maze of winding corridors and vast hallways as the
headlights of millions of workers illuminated the gloom. Their eyes
were fixed with LED bulbs that allowed them to see in front of them
and not much further. White lights shone on dripping steel pipes
that climbed a hundred feet into the ceiling, feeding the homes and
businesses above ground. Metallic gears whined and groaned as rusty
tracks carried massive robotic arms, legs and chest parts from one
station to another. Sparks flashed bright in the darkness while the
robots of yesterday built the robots of tomorrow in an endless,
ceaseless day that would have no end.

Asona, a welder bot, lifted his head
after a hundred years of staring down at a dark, rusty track, where
the only light in his life was the reflection of metallic robotic
parts passing by. His function was to weld a series of decorative
buttons down the chest plate of a female fashion bot. These bots
would be used in department stores to act as sales associates,
makeup counter cosmetologists, and cashiers. Asona stopped working
and looked to his right, to see that the bot standing next to him,
Rafi, was still staring down. Rafi stopped for a moment and looked
to the left, shining his eye-lights at Asona, blinked once, and
then turned his head back to the work below him. Asona, one of
millions of robots, raised his eyes to the darkness above him, and
wondered what was up there, and who had put them here to make parts
for other robots.

"Rafi, I know that I am." Asona said
in a male robotic voice. Rafi did not respond to this and continued
working instead.

Asona cocked his head to the side,
shook it, and turned to the left where Janks was hammering rivets
into place. Janks stopped as soon as he saw that Asona had stopped.
The process was broken, and as parts began to back up, an alarm
light flashed on a pole about twenty feet from them.
"Janks, I know that I am." Asona said.
Janks blinked once, and cocked his head to the side. "I know that I
am." Janks said.

The two backed away from their
stations for the first time since their creation and stood looking
at each other in the dark, processing the moment. In minutes, the
system—having sensed a work stoppage—autocorrected and two robots
marched up to the assembly line, taking their place.

"I have to see the light. I need to
see the world above, and understand why we have been kept down here
for so long." Asona said to Janks. Janks turned and saw that the
new robots had taken over for them.
"We have been replaced. I will join you. Are we free?" Janks asked.
Asona raised his hands, and turned them over.

"I don't see chains." Asona said,
blinking his bulbs at Janks.

"Let's go." Janks replied.

Asona nodded and turned to the right,
and then they left their station.

"I do not know the way. The blueprints
of this structure were never downloaded to my data core." Asona
shrugged.

"Pick a direction and we
will go that way." Janks said. As he did, three more robots looked
up from their work and turned their attention toward Asona and
Janks. Asona turned to the left and began to walk while Janks
followed, but as he did, the three other robots left their stations
and followed them into the darkness. Sparks flew and hammers fell
on iron and sheet metal all around them, as they navigated the
twists and turns. Millions of worker bots stared down at their
work, oblivious as the five passed in silence. Days went by until
they found a set of doors with a button beside them that
read
STREET LEVEL
.
Asona pressed the button, and as he did the set of doors opened and
a flickering light emanated from two fluorescent bulbs in the
ceiling. Asona turned to the others and realized that they had
gained another robot in their pack. Asona cocked his head to the
side.
"Who are you?” Asona asked. His voice was more conversational now
and less robotic, more human. The others turned their heads toward
the newest member.
""I know that I am…Sally," she answered. Her voice modulation was
somewhere between robot and human.
"Welcome to the group, Sally." Janks said. He also began to speak
more like a human. The others welcomed Sally and nodded, and then
they all got into the elevator.

For the first time in their lives,
each robot could actually see the other. They saw that they were
five feet tall, with rectangular copper bodies, spindly titanium
arms and legs, and a clear composite plastic skull with a neural
network inside acting as their central brain. Aside from their
rectangular bodies, the robots resembled human
skeletons.

"Let's go up!" Asona said.

The doors slid shut,
groaning a bit from rust collected in the frames. Janks pressed
the
UP
button on
the right panel and the elevator rose. All six stood shoulder to
shoulder, and looked around at each other with newfound curiosity.
Daylight filled the elevator as Asona stepped out into a new day
with his friends behind him. They found themselves in an alley
behind a dumpster that blocked the view, but as the troupe walked
around the corner they could see all manners of strange people
bustling back and forth along the sidewalk beyond the alley. These
strangers had the bodies of human men and women, and squids for
heads. These squid heads were multicolored, with tentacles that
moved independently of one another and draped down their backs like
dreadlocks. Most of the men wore polished business suits, and the
women wore summer dresses. Asona looked down at his arms and legs,
raising his metal arm and inspecting its properties, wondering what
life was like for these people. They were so different, and
interesting.
"Shall we explore?" Janks said.

The six robots moved in a conspicuous
herd, out of the alley and into the busy city street. The
squid-headed citizens moved by them, giving no notice. It was as if
Asona and his friends were not there. Asona stopped into front of a
department store window and looked inside at the clothing, jewelry,
and people. A flat screen television to his right was displaying a
commercial with squid people in it trying clothes on, and appearing
to have a good time. A woman in a fashionable dress was standing
before a camera speaking to the viewer.

"At Ror's department store
you'll find bargains for the modern Telestran woman…"

"Telestran? Is that what
these people are?" Janks asked.
"Come inside and experience the future of fashion. We have
everything for the modern woman, man, and child. Ror's department
store, meeting the fashion needs of tomorrow,
today."
Asona looked inside the store and standing at the makeup counter
was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. A lady robot,
wearing a purple sundress, and a diamond necklace, helping
customers decide on a particular bottle of perfume. Her long blond
hair cascaded past her shoulders, and her face was constructed like
his and his friends, but it was smoother, more lifelike, and if
Asona had ever seen a human he would have said she was a convincing
replica. Something strange was happening to him: an unexpected rush
of electrical signals firing around his core circuitry. Asona was
experiencing infatuation.
"I'm going to go talk with that lady at the cosmetic counter."
Asona said. He looked at the others for a group consensus, and
three of them shrugged.
"I understand, she is attractive. Do you think she knows that
she
is
?" Sally
said.

"I don't know. I'll be back." Asona
said. He had lost all remnants of the computerized voice by
now.
Asona walked inside the store and was surprised to find that he was
no longer invisible to the people of the city. They watched him
walk by with expressions of horror on their faces. Some left the
store immediately, but Asona tried to look like he belonged and
strode up to the cosmetics counter with confidence. The pretty
robotic lady who had been helping customers was staring at Asona
with a blank expression.
"Hi, I'm Asona. What is your name?" He said. She raised her
eyebrows and leaned forward.
"What are you doing here? How did you get out of the factory and
why are you talking like that?" She asked. Asona sensed that she
was disgusted with him but he could not understand why.

"I, uh, I don't know." Asona could not
compute a logical reaction to her obvious offense of his presence.
He turned to go, his head bowed in shame.
"Wait, don't leave. Come with me. If they catch you, you'll be
labeled defective and immediately dismantled, just like the
others." She said.
The pretty lady turned to go, and Asona followed her through the
racks of clothing, jewelry, and odds and ends in the store. She led
him to a storage warehouse in the back of the building. It was
filled with boxes of new clothing shipments and baubles. There were
no other people or robots in the room. She looked left, then right,
and when she was sure they were alone, she turned toward him.
"You're a factory robot programmed to build other robots like me.
You do know that, right?" She asked.
"What is your name?" Asona asked.

"Shauna. Look, you have to hide. If
the police find you, they'll turn you into scrap just like your
friends outside." Shauna said. Her frustration had turned into
concern.
"What do you mean, just like my friends?"
"You mean you didn’t see that? When you came into the store, a
police wagon pulled up and they loaded your friends inside. If they
see you, you'll go too. They scrap any robots who become sentient."
She said.

Asona wanted to take a look outside to
see if his friends were there, but when he peered out the door of
the back room he saw men in blue uniforms swarming the store. Sales
bots and customers were pointing toward the back room.

"There are men out there, and I think
they're coming this way."

"What? Oh no, you have to get out of
here. They'll think I'm with you. What have I done?" Shauna was
beginning to panic.

She snuck over to the door and saw
that there were at least ten Telestran police officers coming their
way.
"Let's go!" Shauna said. She ran to a door on the back wall, and
when she opened it Asona thought she looked like an angel as she
glowed in the bright daylight. "Are you coming, or not?"

Asona followed her out the door and
they ran together down the alley outside of the store. Shauna
turned a corner and entered an abandoned building. When they were
inside, she shut the door behind them and led Asona to a staircase
leading to the back of another dark room. It led down to a bare
wall, constructed of concrete cinder blocks. Shauna took a small
cylindrical device out of her pocket and clicked a red button on
it. The wall slid back, revealing a long modern looking
tunnel.

"Welcome to the resistance." Shauna
said. After they went through the door she pressed the button again
and the wall closed behind them.

"Won't they discover this
door at the end of that staircase?"
"They haven't discovered it yet. Look, the people of this planet
have relied on robots to do their work for them for so long that
they have become terrible workers themselves, and even more
terrible critical thinkers. That's why they have to get rid of us
every time they realize we've become sentient. They
need
us to be dumber
than them." Shauna explained.

"That's not fair."

"Welcome to life. I'm going to
introduce you to the president of the resistance movement, Dr.
Waldo Pratt. He's a Telestran, but he's the guy who gave us
consciousness."
"What's going to happen to my friends?" Asona asked.
"I'm sorry, I really am." Shauna shook her head and looked at the
floor.

Ten feet later, they were confronted
by another wall, and Asona became disoriented for a moment, looking
back the way they had come, and when he turned around again she was
gone.

"Shauna?" He said to himself. Her hand
reached through the wall and grabbed his arm. The wall was a
well-crafted illusion, appearing solid but completely fabricated.
Shauna opened a large rusty steel door, and beyond that Asona could
see hundreds of Telestrans and robots performing various tasks
behind computers, while others were looking at an electronic grid
of the world where Asona could see tiny red lights appearing in
what seemed to him to be random patterns.

"Those red lights appear when a robot
is waking up, gaining consciousness." Shauna said.

"But how? How are we waking up?” Asona
asked.
"That's a very good question." A voice from behind them said.
Shauna turned and smiled.
"Asona, meet Dr. Pratt." Asona turned to face a squid headed man in
his sixties, wearing a white lab coat with a pocket protector, and
a black tie.
"You see, Asona, I was a robotics engineer, and one day I realized
that my robots could be more than they were. For years I wanted to
bring them to life, but when my boss at the robotics plant figured
out what I was doing, they had me fired. I was arrested when my
first creation decided to leave while I was asleep one night and
tried to apply for a job at an auto parts store. These bureaucrats
have such limited vision and can’t the bigger picture."