The Robot and the Inevitable

We like to imagine that the future will be better, a manifestation of all that our current life lacks. Maybe it is idealistic to imagine that it will get better, it depends who you ask. The people living in the Slums have long since squashed the hope that it will change for the best, decades of being oppressed tends to do that to peoples spirits. 

In a shabby room accustomed to silence, a voice coming from a small television ripples through the air, causing a disturbance of the layers of dust accumulated on every available surface. Sitting in the center of his surroundings is a huge being. If you were to pass him in a crowded street, you would not look twice, but in this almost empty room, his size and frame is overwhelming. And if you were to look, I mean, really look, you would see the harsh angles of his eyes, jaw and limbs. His skin is a canvas, stretched over a thick metal frame. Yet there is something so human about those eyes, something so broken.

The Robot tunes out the television, tunes out the world, and is left to the constant chatter of his brain. The circuit board that pretends to be real, to be an actual brain, never stops buzzing. The massive creature made of metal and skin collapses on the floor, broken, wanting, needing to be human, to be real. What does it mean to be human? He thinks, anything must be better than this, I am just a fragmented imitation of something real. The Robot has never resented anything other than himself. The television continues to talk, until it feels almost impossible to ignore it anymore.

“The FBI is continuing the manhunt for the scientist who stole expensive government military technology. They are offering a substantial reward of 10,000 Roman Credits to anyone who can find him.”

“Shit.” A voice muttered behind the mass of metal.

The Robot whipped his head around, forever on guard. You wouldn’t be able to tell what the Robot is thinking, he hides his pain like a child hides the crumbs of the cookies they ate. Which is to say that he doesn’t hide them very well, but since no one looks close enough, it works. But the Robot is terrified, terrified of seeing the government officials again, but the voice behind him is only Jack. Jack, the man who risked everything for him. Jack, the man who sees him, sees past the destruction he has caused. 

“It’ll be ok, they cannot reach us here, you are safe.” Jack’s voice cracks, a sign of his worry, but the Robot pretends not to notice. 

It started with the smallest noise, the patter of footsteps, the kicking of a door, a singular gunshot, the high pitch screams of a child. The Robot knew those sounds too well, he used to be a sound of destruction, the monster behind the gun. Not anymore, never again he thinks.

 “Jack, this? This pain? Is this what it means?”

“To be human?” The Robot looks deep into the eyes of the man who saved him, and cannot figure out what he has said wrong, but Jack’s eyes are downcast, brimming with old memories and lost hope. 

“It used to be beautiful, we used to be beautiful. Now, we only have each other, and sometimes even that is not enough. But humanity is much more than destruc-”

“Jack! Jack, Jack, where are you?” A small boy clambers through the shattered glass of the only window. His name is Ben, and he’s been climbing through that window for years now, gracefully dodging the glass to escape his own home. He glances at the Robot, eyes filled with clouded wonder, he whispers again, his whole frame trembling.

“Jack, they’re here, the bad men. They got mum-”

“Wha- Ben, slow down.” His face had been painted with calm, but the Robot could tell, underneath the placid exterior was resignation. Jack had already written himself as dead, the story of life finally over. The Robot knows that he will just get rebooted, but what kind of a life will that be? One in which he is condemned to fight? To eliminate the troublemakers? Which he knows is only code for the minorities and the poor. He doesn’t want to be destruction, he wants to give, to love, to be loved. Is that even possible, he thinks, can robots love? As if by instinct he starts to ask Jack, but the voice of a heart broken child interrupts him before he can even open his mouth.

“They got her, they got her, the bad men. They- I climbed out the window, it’s too late, I couldn’t stop them.” 

It was only then the full gravity of what happened hit Ben. The tears came slowly at first, then all at once, until Ben’s face was nothing short of a waterfall of salty despair and anguish. 

There is not much you can say to an eight year old who has just lost his only parent. So Jack doesn’t say anything. He only holds the small child with a tenderness so raw that the Robot could not help but join the embrace. And so the orphan, the scientist and the Robot hold each other, waiting for the inevitable arrival of the cold hearted men who hide behind metal guns and shields.

The Robot heard it first, a sound he half expected to have imagined, hope is dangerous in that way. But when Ben lifts his tilted head off of Jack’s chest as if to listen, the Robot knows that his story is not over yet. Although he cannot smile, that is all he feels like doing when the chants echoing from the broken window reach his ears.

“People from the Slums stick together. YOU TRAMPLE US, AND NOW YOU EXPECT US TO LET YOU PASS? WE WILL TRAMPLE YOU. YOU HAVE MESSED WITH THE WRONG FAMILY.” 

“STAND DOWN, I REPEAT, STAND DOWN.” The government official’s voice had the slightest tremor, almost imperceptible, but the Robot heard it, and so did the vast sea of people. Nothing is more scary than a human who has nothing to lose, and there is nobody on earth who has less to lose than the inhabitants of the slums.

It was so quiet, as if every person was holding their breath, becoming the calm before the storm. Then, like a tornado, the people from the slums stood and charged. The cheers and screams of the people who have nothing to lose fills the night sky, and it is deafeningly beautiful. Desperation is not just an emotion, it is a bond. And as he watches all these humans fighting and dying for each other, for those they love, for what they believe in, the Robot finally understands what it means to be human.