Out there

- XI-U 18? Don't remind me of that place, you useless team! I will never forget the horror that we live in that last category planetoid, it is engraved in my internal chip for the rest of my existence! - XY 1.2. The robot is somewhat strung, tightening the nuts on its central command box located between the upper and lower extensions.

 - You are a team without updates, like all of your generation, concerned with the tasks to be completed and stuff - said P.P. A robonoid equipment with a plasma structure, almost liquid that could be disposed of with a simple blow when it did not comply with the program installed in its child-designed housing.

 -  And what can I do ? That's what I was programmed for. True. I remember that I was like this for a while, however, and in the face of so many difficulties, I would not like to return to that place.

 - We are not going back. What happened to you was that possibly, due to some defect during the assembly process of those models manufactured in the days preceding the great nuclear attack that, in addition to devastating many planets, deformed many robotic machines like yours ...

 - Yes. I remember, I was there, and my memory chip presents images of destroyed machines burning even the most intimate of their structure, crying out for help and for help before the end of their lives in such a tragic way. But I was there, and I I agree that I wanted to help extinguish the fire. However, a presser stopped me, saying:

 - Not worth it. I wanted to help - with low battery, almost no voice - I remember, yes, something - shaking the battery to give it more energy.

 She would repeat: but… could you tell me how it all happened? closing the optical sensors connected with the neural system in primitive network.

 - It is the thousandth time that I explain what happened, grandmother: I will not repeat, that's why you should pay attention: there was a fight in the background: those from the north against those from the south, for selfish territorial issues not codified by our system - tic , tic, tic,; the machine began to melt his frontal system of sensitive understanding, causing him to scratch. His ancestral memory hard disk reproduced the information: it was the starry night of November 18. The gentle evening breeze said it was going to be a quiet night. However, when the northern rebels began to gather, they decided to attack the southern ones.

 "And?" He asked as if it were the first time he had heard the story - with distracted attention - I would like you to explain everything to me, because my memory indicates my presence precisely at that event. It was there that I wanted to take out my battery, for the rest of my useful existence - shaking the battery, with the lost optical sensors turned off, but still sensitive to the warp of time in space, which made him repeat thousands of times: I think I remember, yes, that you were manufactured during that event, by a foreign manufacturer, of great power - Divagava XY, to which PP put his upper extension on his brain off and on his battery.

 Suddenly, the robot begins to smile and dance - for ten micro-thousandths of relative time.

 Once the charge was used, she returned to her previous state:

 But then I would like to know more.

 - good. For the thousandth time I repeat that those from the south did not wait, and began to attack with quantum weapons, which were deadly because they interfered with vital processes, disintegrating molecular bonds to an infinitesimal level, which was irreversible. That practically eliminated the then dominant species, the human, which at that time had developed its technology to extreme levels, with chips so powerful that they entered the tip of a synthetic hair, like ours, which really look like Of the humans, of course .. That war really involved the people of the entire planet and was called the Fourth World War, information is included in the manufacturer's manuals and you can find it in section 2 of the same.

 - exactly. That happened! , But I still do not know how we came to dominate this world that has caused so much suffering to all the ci robotic use ...

 - Well, this world did not come out of nowhere. We really were the technological survivors of that explosion. Many machines that existed at that time were destroyed, because those quantum weapons destroyed everything: coats, light, air, water, animals, plants, people, machines. They were deadly. And some of us had an escape system included, being able to escape in small aerospace devices. The planet of origin of all of us, the Earth came to burn completely in its crust, and its core was a blanket of heat and fire, ill-advised to maintain the vital production processes that we now have in this colony.

 - I mean .. it's all over, exactly the same as I remember. This is what I remember - closing my eyes to perhaps perceive a world without light, leaden with smoke, and the black earth without life.

 - So is...

 My optical sensors projected green fields with flowers and plants, and blue lakes with brown mountains.

 - It is time for the scheduled robotic update.

 - What does that work for?

 - That's where they program us with images and all kinds of information for a better functional development.

 The schedule did not have a fixed structure.

 It moved according to the needs of the machine and the moment.

 And any machine with at least ten life cycles could do it because they had already accumulated three eras of knowledge.

 My optical sensors also captured introspective moments during the period in which we machines were latent.

 My stereotronic mother activated my connective system of momentary exclusion. It was latent.

 So, I began to see images that my systems could not translate, like several moons arranged in rows, knives, cables, tools that fly, secret passages in the entrances of the coats ...

 I didn't understand it.

 Instantly, she activated me again. He no longer dreamed.

 We left that ergometric room, colorless, insensitive.

 Outside, everything was different: everything, but absolutely all the constructions or shelters for the machines were made of gray metal, which was manufactured by the molecular transformation of each of the machines, we, who at the end of its useful life or having no repair , we were recycled.

 Therefore, we had programming - virtual, it is true - so as not to have to be discarded.

 Almost all of us were manufactured on our home planet. However, where we lived, most of the shelters contained only a polyurethane structure that served as walls. Floating. They were almost weightless. There was no weight in them, because most of them were digitized, with sliding doors that were opened by means of registration recognition of each machine.

 There was no room, living room, kitchen, bathroom - as in the times of my forgetful tutor - the same as almost all the tutors of her generation.

 In that place that I knew as mine, everything was holographic, unreal.

 Except for the coats of the hybrid beings, a mixture of machine with mutant humanoid species - those that had to adapt to the drastic conditions of the local temperature: since there was no sun, the cold was constant for them, who had to survive with coats , or natural skins of clones of prehistoric mastodons that were left in the deposit of useless things.

 We left the classroom to buy some magnetic bits that they sold to reset our systems.

 When my stereotronic mother bought the sweet synthetic pipocas from the vending machine, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, without giving it much importance, because the smell of the pipocas was delicious

 My stereotronic tutor was an original model that had no flesh or bone, only non-visible circuits, hidden by an artificial skin that very much resembled the original skin of ancient humans, but was manufactured. Her hair wasn't natural either, but color, size, and even styling could be controlled by external activators.

 His body did not age, due to the internal renewal system that kept all the pieces intact.

 Sometimes the circuits would short, and she would start crying.

 As mother and son, we look for a seat.

 We found it just under a reintegrated tree that gave us some heat through its thermal detection systems.

 It was night, but our nights lasted for days, since the rotation of our colony took out the necessary energy for its operation by means of intraplanetary catalytic rays.

 The day was determined by artificial lights placed in our orbit.

 With the talk, I had not realized that a subject had sat almost next to us.

 I started looking for his factory code with my x-ray gaze, which found everything.

 I did not find it.

 It was not registered.

 - "The unregistered", said my electronic mother - "are dangerous"

 And my synthetic carcass bristled, drawing the attention of that guy, who looked at me.

 His system could interpret what my circuits could think.

 A hole was made in the receptacle.

 "What if he chases us? What if he wants to deactivate us? My circuits were in an uproar as I had no answers to those questions.

 "Where is your record?" He looked again, finding absolutely nothing.

 He spilled the pipocas on purpose, to have an excuse to look at him.

 He, he realized, and averted his face from my gaze.

 I stared at him without saying anything.

 It was dangerous.

 I could not swallow all the magnetic bit from the dispenser of material to be recycled.

 But if I had realized that when sitting next to us on that bench under an inert tree, already at dusk, that stout machine, which had the base lined with surplus parts from the assembly of other models, typical of second-class robots - with many nuts - had the upper extension covered by a concrete metallic structure, the kind used to deactivate robots.

 - It is true! I already saw it, and my memory says that I already lived it too.

 - No, you didn't. You have manufacturing flaws.

 - It is that, at the moment of overturning, my gaze went to his face. First, he couldn't tell if what he had was hair sticking out of his face, or maybe he had light bulbs in his mouth.

 He turned his head the other way, limiting my vision.

 But he turned his head to where we were: and I saw it.

 Half of his face had hairs that were not even, and they also had thicknesses of all kinds, like the robonoids, yes sir. They were thick, wire-like bristles, dark because I couldn't really see anything else. His nose protruded from the cap that covered his forehead, and part of his face.

 However, the other half appeared to have a silver mask, full of wires running from its nose to its mouth, and from its eyes to its ears. I think I saw some nuts, as well as some liquid coming out of his forehead.

 Was it a remnant of XI-U 18? What would a hybrid be doing in the middle of teams?

 Not.

 It was not logical.

 Well, the explosion of a great quantum bomb had destroyed everything in what no longer looked like a planet, but garbage.

 I auto paused my circuits, because I had no answers to my deepest doubts, I realized despite low energy consumption, that my internal circuits began to fire, shaking in response to the doubt that this subject caused me. Instinctively, I squeezed my mother's hand to get us out of there.

 - What happens?

 - Let's go let's go! - with the voice shaking

 - Do you want to go to the bathroom to reoil yourself?

 - Yes, I do - I lied without thinking twice.

 - Good. We will return to the shelter, then, because there is no public bathroom in this square.

 Relieved, we rise

 As I walked through the streets, that image slowly faded from me.

 And memory, too.

 So I was never there again, like my tutor.