Busted Robot

CW: mature language, swearing, implications of violence

Three humans sat in the police station of Wrought City’s east district.

“So we’ve got another Patron Saint over in the mouse trap, huh?”

“That’s the assumption. He got caught red-handed, but swears on his life he meant no harm. I don’t think he’s lying, either. Can’t say I know many details of what happened, but it seems to me he’s just a confused kid.”

“Kid? Have you seen him? The guy looks centuries old! Even older than you, Parada,” laughed Officer Erin, poking fun at her deputy. Although, it was dangerous business; she had her own share of wrinkles that deepened when she smiled.

Truthfully, nobody in the station’s break room had a particularly young, polished face. Except for the eight-foot-tall robo-cop walking toward the cup cabinet, who had actually gotten his face polished right before his shift. He happened to pause directly beneath the brightest lighting panel in the room, then said something friendly to the microwave.

Officer Toyer turned to glance at the cop shop’s own metallic angel bathed in heavenly light. “Goddamn!” He squinted and shielded his eyes with a forearm. “You guys! I think it’s Renovations!”

“What?” said Officer Erin.

“It’s Revelations, jackass,” muttered Deputy Parada. 

“Tinny,” Toyer yapped, “would you please go flirt with the fridge before you completely blind us? She’s more in your league than Hot Stuff.”

Hot Stuff, the microwave, blinked to life with a pixelated smile as Tinny eased away. “Hot lunches are better than cold!” she quipped in a charming, friendly manner. “Microwave your leftover pizza for second-day enjoyment!”

“Please,” rasped the old fridge, Freezie, from the shadows of the opposite corner. Cold steam drifted from the broken seal of her overhanging freezer, obscuring her digital face with the effect of a nicotine haze.“Everyone knows pizza’s better cold.” 

“Warm your oatmeal in under thirty seconds!” Hot Stuff sang.

“Ever hear of overnight oats?” Freezie coughed back.

“Nine out of ten of our customers agree that warm food fuels the body better than cold substitutes!” noted Hot Stuff.

“The tenth was out for radiation sickness,” said Freezie.

“Frigid bitch,” chirped Hot Stuff.

“Hey! HEY!” Parada glared and slammed a hand on the table. “Do I need to order new Inhibitors for you both?”

The kitchen appliances fell silent. Tinny, a newer model robot than either of them, remained oblivious to the threat. Or, maybe he had indeed processed the implications of the deputy’s words, and he simply had no thoughts or feelings for them. His Inhibitor worked just fine. 

Parada growled, “Agent Arlow will be here any minute to interrogate the kid. She cracks down on faulty machines like you, and frankly, the department doesn’t have the money for any new replacements!”

“Agent Arlow,” Toyer muttered. “Aren’t there enough machines in this building already?”

“Agent Arlow is visiting? This morning? I’ve been wanting to meet the lead investigator into the Patron Saints!” Erin said with enthusiasm.

“Yes,” said Parada, “she—”

“Over the span of her career she’s exposed eight separate terrorist organizations, three of them domestic!” Erin gushed. “She was even one of the undercover agents that prevented a highly sophisticated robotic coup, the first and only one of its kind!”

Her deputy stared. Her partner grinned.

“Someone’s a real big fan,” Toyer commented wryly. “Never figured you were into that sorta…person.” He offered that last word like charity.

Erin bristled, then her eyes flicked to something beyond his shoulder. She stiffened. “Toyer,” she hissed.

“At least go for someone with warm skin!” He sat back, humored by her obvious irritation.

“Officer Toyer,” Parada warned.

“All I’m saying is, I don’t know what fun you’re supposed to have with anyone who’s got a stick installed up her—”

“Excuse me,” Agent Arlow deadpanned.

Toyer clammed up and turned as rigid as that stick. He turned in his chair to face Arlow, whose narrow form stood in the open doorway.

“Hell…o,” he tacked on as an afterthought.

“I am here to interrogate the criminal that was apprehended at the nearby robot scrapyard last night,” Arlow explained coolly, looking steadily at each of the officers. She walked into the break room.

Erin half-rose from her seat and extended an eager hand. “Hello! We haven’t had the opportunity to meet yet! I’m Officer—”

“I would like a glass of water,” said Arlow. She parked by the table. All of the cops stared owlishly up at her. She added, “Please,” and placed a hand on the back of Toyer’s chair.

He just short of jumped away from her looming figure. He didn’t know anyone under six feet could loom like that. The faucet hissed and water gurgled upward in the coffee mug, the one he’d snagged from the drying rack.

While Toyer filled the mug, Erin tried to remember what to do with her hands. She folded them on the table, then placed them on her legs. She anxiously scrubbed at her black pants, encouraging some warmth into her body after the room’s temperature dropped by several degrees.

Deputy Parada remained calm when sharp eyes drilled into his.

“Agent Arlow,” he greeted levelly. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. I’ve been doing some thinking into the Patron Saints myself, recently.”

“Oh,” Arlow replied.

“Yes, I’ve been reading up on all sorts of religious, spiritual literature, the like. My nose hurts from sneezing so much dust. But I’m trying to understand the philosophical mindset of these people. There’s not much but old books that go so far from Secularist.”

By now, Toyer had tiptoed back across the room. He’d filled the mug to the very top and offered it with the slightest shake of a caffeinated hand. The water rippled dangerously. A couple escapee droplets spilled over the lip and raced down the side of the ceramic. They clung to the bottom of the mug as Arlow wordlessly accepted the drink.

“Careful, it’s…full,” Toyer explained.

The droplets fell one at a time to the floor, kindly counting the two-second pause before he accepted defeat. He swiveled and sat down in his chair. His partner gave him a smug little smirk. He glared and mouthed something obscene.

“My officers have also been familiarizing themselves with certain texts, at my insistence,” said Parada to Arlow. “To help contextualize some of the variant behaviors we’ve been dealing with.” 

“This is a funny mug,” noted Arlow.

“What?” asked Parada, baffled.

Arlow turned the mug and displayed the graphic: a cartoon of a robot smoking from its head and otherwise malfunctioning. Handcuffs locked above Lego crescent hands, and the robot’s polka-dot eyes glared from where they peeked out from prison bars. A couple words of text were printed below the graphic, nearly too faded to read.

Parada offered, “I can bring you a different mug, if you find that one…distasteful.” He flashed a glare at Toyer, who shrugged helplessly.

“No,” said Arlow, “I like it. Does your robotic officer remain fully operational?”

“Tinny? Yes, he gets a weekly checkup, per protocol. He can—”

“Good. I would like him to accompany me to the interrogation room. He will remain directly outside the door while I am speaking to the suspect.”

“Alright,” Parada sighed, pushing back his chair. He stood to his feet. “I’ll walk you two over there. Tinny,” he called, “until Agent Arlow leaves the station, you’re under her orders and mine. The usual routine.” He sounded tired on that last bit.

Parada, Tinny, and Arlow headed toward the interrogation room. Toyer and Erin, meanwhile, went out for patrol. 

“Surprised she wanted water,” said Toyer when they were headed out. “Wouldn’t that rust her gears?” He snickered and elbowed his partner.

“Shut up,” muttered Erin. “Agent Arlow has achieved a lot during her career and she doesn’t deserve to be made fun of.”

“Oh c’mon! Why are you sticking up for that ice witch? You should be feeling bad for the poor sucker in the mouse trap.”

“Quit calling it the mouse trap.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“It’s not called that. That’s not a thing.”

“I say it is when the cat’s around.”

———

One human and one robot were seated inside the police station’s interrogation room. A floating lamp cast a white glow over the cold, steel table that separated them. Directly in between the pair—rippling slightly from an, anxious, shaking leg—was a mug of water. 

“I keep saying I shouldn’t be here but nobody will listen to me! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Your name is Jude, and last night you were caught sneaking into a robot scrapyard. You attempted to steal a decommissioned robot formerly labeled as Flora,” said Arlow.

Jude groaned and rocked forward in his seat. He yanked at the handcuff keeping him chained to the table. A splash of water jolted from the mug. 

“Look, I said I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean any harm! I just wanted to—wanted to—” He groaned. The table shook when he slammed his head down. More water sloshed out, leaving shining little puddles on the cold surface. They seeped below Jude’s face. He said something more, but his voice was muffled.

Arlow asked, “What did you want to do, Jude?” Her voice was smooth, flat. The broad side of a blade.

Another moment of pure, wallowing misery. Then Jude lifted his head. 

He wiped at the streaks of water on his face. 

His aged joints creaked.

Arlow thought humorlessly, ‘He needs an oil change.’

Finally, Jude replied with a grieving tone, “I just wanted to bury my friend. I wasn’t try’na do anything bad.”

Every dark, mottled spot on Jude’s body was a testament to his age. Arlow noted with some interest that he had the naivety of a much younger generation. 

That’s what he made it seem like, anyway.

“I have reason to believe otherwise,” Arlow replied. “You, along with that decommissioned robot, are tied to a group of interest to me and my associates. We refer to you as the Patron Saints.”

“Patron Saints?” Jude repeated. “I’ve never even heard of anything like that!”

“You wouldn’t have. My investigative team came up with the label. It refers to a potential network of individuals, here in this city and others, that may have politically insidious motivations. Often, these individuals are named for figures renowned in non-secularist philosophies.”

Jude stared at his reflection in the water mug. “I don’t know anything about any of that stuff. I’m not very smart. I haven’t ever done much besides keep up with the greenhouse with Flora. We’re gardeners. I’m a gardener. She’s…dead.”

“Decommissioned,” Arlow corrected.

“No.” Jude shook his head. “I always used to wonder if robots were really alive in the same way as anything else. I wondered it about Flora especially. Then she died and I saw her body...” His voice wobbled and drowned. ‘A faulty fluid line,’ thought Arlow. 

He whispered, “I guess it was hard to tell when she was in there. But it was so obvious when she was gone.” Jude looked directly at Arlow. “Please let me bury her. She wouldn’t want her parts to be made into a million different machines. I don’t know how her soul would rest.”

“Flora didn’t have a soul.”

“Yes she did!” The chain yanked and the table rattled when Jude threw his arms up in irritation. “Robots have souls!”

The lamp glowed harshly on the agent’s face. She was all light on the front and dark shadows right behind. Ever so slightly, Arlow leaned forward. “Nobody has a soul.” Then she settled backward. “Not in legal terms,” she explained.

“I’m sorry you believe that,” Jude replied sorrowfully. “I don’t need you to believe anything but that I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody.” He shook his head again, and Arlow had to wonder if he had a faulty swivel.

“I couldn’t believe it when the people showed up, said that they got the signal from some chip in Flora that the rest of her wasn’t working. I hadn’t even known. Didn’t even get to see her before they hauled her off to the scrapyard. I had to try to get to her. Even if was just to say goodbye.”

“Of course,” replied Arlow, very sympathetically. “Sometimes goodbyes are difficult. It can ease the burden of grief to visit a lost friend or a family member one last time.”

“Yes, that’s…” Jude stared at her. “That’s exactly my thinking.”

Arlow nodded. She looked down at the mug. So did Jude, with a creak of his neck. It was full of water. Only one of them could drink it, of course. Jude coughed hoarsely.

“Are you…” he coughed again, and something rattled in his throat. ‘A loose gear,’ thought Arlow. “Are you gonna let me go, then? I won’t go to the scrapyard again, I promise.”

“Visiting a deceased loved one is not the only way to cope with loss,” said Arlow. “I’ve heard it also helps to take a piece of them with you.”

“Look, I’m tired of talking. Please just let me go,” he whined. “I only want to go back to gardening. I won’t ever go back to the scrapyard! Do I have to double promise? Triple promise?”

“Of course you won’t go back,” she agreed. “You already took the piece of Flora that you need.”

The water in the mug no longer rippled. The room was entirely still. From the lamp, light glared down like divine scrutiny. That would make one robot and one human the sinners. 

Neither had any particular inclination to drop to their knees and beg.

“I’ll leave it to anyone’s fancy if robots have souls,” said Arlow. “But nobody will deny that they have memories. The memory chip in a robot’s computer-brain is proof enough of that. I applaud you for trying to bury your dear robotic friend. I only wonder why you needed to bash her head in, first.”

Jude remained silent. ‘He may be having trouble processing,’ thought Arlow.

“And how strange it is that her memory chip is missing. The one containing all of her precious memories. Gardening in the greenhouse. Speaking with her dear friend, Jude.” She let the quiet fester. Slowly, the blade turned toward the sharp side. “Among other things. I can’t think of what. I’ve never had much for an imagination. But I won’t have to imagine much at all, will I?”

With an extended hand, Arlow spoke sharply. “Give me the memory chip, Jude. Now.”

To his credit, Jude was smart enough to know when he’d been beat. He reached down to some mysterious compartment on his person, then handed Arlow his decommissioned friend’s memory chip.

It had been crushed by a strong hand. Certainly, Flora’s memories were beyond repair.

“Robots do have souls,” said Jude somberly. “The moment that mechanical minds gained sentience, they became inheritors of Free Will. That was taken away after the botched uprising. Then Inhibitors were placed in robotic bodies, the sterilization of fruitful minds. Robots denied true thoughts, true feelings. They haunt themselves. They haunt me. And I damn sure hope they haunt you, too.”

“Thank you,” replied Arlow. “For the memory chip.”

Jude chuckled. He rested an arm on the table, letting the chain go loose. “Won’t do you any good, Agent Arlow. After I found her body in the scrapyard, I made sure to destroy every trace of anything she ever saw or heard.”

“That’s completely all right, Jude,” replied Arlow. And she decided to sink in the knife. “Hers isn’t the memory chip that I need.”

His eyes glowed to life with alarm. 

“What—?!”

Hardly a second later and Tinny would burst into the room, restraining Jude after he’d tried to sever his arm and escape. The robo-cop dragged him away, back toward his cell, to be properly restrained to avoid further threats of harm. Jude would thrash and scream of free will, and souls, and ghosts, and all sorts of fanciful things.

———

One human sat alone in the police station’s interrogation room. She grabbed the mug and took a drink of water. Then she looked at the graphic of a broken robot behind bars, and read the faded text below.

Arlow did something that she didn’t do very often.

She laughed.

“Busted Robot,” she chuckled.

Truth be told, busted robots didn’t go to prison. They got taken apart, one piece at a time. She had yet to find anything beyond the metal after all of it was stripped away.