Robopocalypse

“Carl,” says Cormac. “Come check this thing out.”

A pale, thin human pushes to the front. With some hesitation, it pulls down a visor. I feel millimeter-wave radar wash over my body. I sway in place but do not move.

“Clean,” says Carl. “But the way it’s dressed explains the naked corpses we found outside Prince George.”

“What is it?” asks Cormac.

“Oh, it’s an Arbiter-class safety and pacification unit. Modified. But it seems like it can understand human language. I mean, really understand. There’s never been anything like this, Cormac. It’s like this thing is… Shit, man. It’s like it’s alive.”

The leader turns and looks at me in disbelief.

“Why are you really here?” he asks.

“I am here to find allies,” I respond.

“How do you know about us?”

“A human called Mathilda Perez transmitted a call to arms on wide broadcast. I intercepted.”

“No shit,” says Cormac.

I do not understand this statement.

“No shit?” I respond.

“Maybe he’s for real,” says Carl. “We’ve had Rob allies. We use the spider tanks, don’t we?”

“Yeah, but they’ve been lobotomized,” says Leo. “This thing is walking and talking. It thinks it’s human or something.”

I find the suggestion offensive, unpalatable.

“Emphatic negative. I am a freeborn Arbiter-class humanoid robot.”

“Well, you got that going for you,” says Leonardo.

“Affirmative,” I respond.

“Great sense of humor on this one, huh?” says Cherrah.

Cherrah and Leo bare their teeth at each other. Emotion recognition indicates that these humans are now happy. This seems low probability. I cock my head to indicate confusion and run a diagnostic on my emotion recognition subprocess.

The dark female makes quiet clucking sounds. I orient my face to her. She seems dangerous.

“What the fuck is so funny, Cherrah?” asks Cormac.

“I don’t know. This thing. Nine Oh Two. It’s just such a… robot. You know? It’s so damned earnest.”

“Oh, so now you don’t think this is a trap?”

“No, I don’t. Not anymore. What would be the point? This one by itself and damaged could probably kill half our squad, even without weapons. Isn’t that right, Niner?”

I run the simulation in my head. “Probable.”

“Look how serious it is. I don’t think it’s lying,” says Cherrah.

“Can it lie?” asks Leo.

“Do not underestimate my abilities,” I respond. “I am capable of misrepresenting factual knowledge to further my own aims. However, you are correct. I am serious. We share a common enemy. We must face it as one or we will die.”

As he registers my words, a ripple of unknown emotion travels through the face of Cormac. I orient toward him, sensing danger. He pulls his M9 pistol out of its holster and strides recklessly toward me. He places the pistol an inch away from my face.

“Don’t tell me about dying, you fucking hunk of metal,” he says. “You’ve got no idea what life is. What it means to feel. You can’t be hurt. You can’t die. But that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy killing you.”

Cormac presses the gun against my forehead. I can feel the cool circle of the barrel against my outer casing. It is resting against a build line in my skull—a weak spot. One trigger pull and my hardware will be irreparably damaged.

“Cormac,” says Cherrah. “Step away. You’re too close. That thing can take your gun away and kill you in a heartbeat.”

“I know,” says Cormac, his face inches from mine. “But it hasn’t. Why?”

I sit in the snow, a trigger pull away from death. There is nothing to do. So, I do nothing.

“Why did you come here?” says Cormac. “You must have known we’d kill you. Answer me. You’ve got three seconds to live.”

“We have a common enemy.”

“Three. It’s just not your lucky day.”

“We must fight it together.”

“Two. You fuckers killed my brother last week. Didn’t know that, did you?”

“You are in pain.”

“One. Any last words?”

“Pain means you are still alive.”

“Zero, motherfucker.”

Click.

Nothing happens. Cormac moves his palm to the side and I observe that the clip is missing from the pistol. Maxprob indicates he never intended to fire at all.

“Alive. You just said the magic word. Get up,” he says.

Humans are so difficult to predict.

I stand, rising to my full height of seven feet. My slender body looms over the humans in the clear, frigid air. I sense that they feel vulnerable. Cormac does not allow this feeling to show on his face, but it is in the way they all stand. In the way their chests rise and fall just a little faster.

“What the fuck, Cormac?” asks Leo. “We not gonna kill it?”

“I want to, Leo. Trust me. But it’s not lying. And it’s powerful.”

“It’s a machine, man. It deserves to die,” says Leo.

“No,” says Cherrah. “Cormac is right. This thing wants to live. Maybe as bad as we do. On the hill, we agreed to do whatever it takes to kill Archos. Even if it hurts.”

“This is it,” says Cormac. “Our advantage. And I, for one, am going to take it. But if you can’t deal, pack up and hit the Gray Horse Army main camp. They’ll take you in. I won’t hold it against you.”

The squad stands silent, waiting. It is clear to me that nobody is going to leave. Cormac eyes them all, one by one. Some unspoken human communication is taking place on a hidden channel. I did not realize they communicated this much without words. I note that we machines are not the only species who share information silently, wreathed in codes.

Ignoring me, the humans gather into a rough circle. Cormac raises his arms and puts them on the shoulders of the two nearest humans. Then the rest put their arms on one another’s shoulders. They stand in this circle, heads in the middle. Cormac bares his teeth in a wild-eyed grin.

“Brightboy squad is gonna fight with a motherfucking robot,” he says. The others begin to smile. “You believe that? You think Archos is going to predict that? With an Arbiter!”

In a circle, arms intertwined and hot breath cascading into the middle, the humans appear to be a single, many-limbed organism. They make that repetitive noise again, all of them. Laughter. The humans are hugging each other and they are laughing.

How strange.

“Now, if only we could find more!” shouts Cormac.

A roar of laughter comes from the human lungs, shattering the silence and somehow filling the stark emptiness of the landscape.

“Cormac,” I croak.

The humans turn to look at me. Their laughter dries up. The smiles fade so quickly into worry.

I issue a tight-beam radio command. Hoplite and Warden, my squad mates, begin to stir. They sit up in the