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It’s been two years since the first contact, or the first invasion as it’s known now. Two years ago the robots came from somewhere beyond the stars that we humans can see and landed on earth. The first few days were mostly normal despite their appearance and all of the noise that that caused within humanity. It’s assumed that they had met the governments of our world and communicated for those first few days. Then everything went wrong.
The computers and phones went out first, then all of the power. The robots took it all away within a matter of hours of deciding to do so, and they did decide. They are intelligent, thinking beings. Though they might not bleed like we do when injured, they still know pain and revenge. What news could get out to the masses included talk that some of us were attempting to fight the robots that had started to properly invade the cities; the key word there is “attempt”.
The smallest ones, that look like they’re made of copper, stand at over six feet tall, the silver ones stand seven or eight feet, and the biggest golden one is said to be at least ten feet tall. They have outer shells that cover the front and back of their torsos, the tops and fronts of their four arms and two legs, and their heads. The rest of them were made of thick, twisting wires that wrapped around each other like vines on a tree that made up most of their mass. The only supposed weak spot on them could have been their clear face plate that covers the whole of their face, and lets you see inside their head and look at the swirling, colored particles of energy floating around. But even when hit by bullets, they’re only a little dented at most. All of these parts are impervious to gunfire, water, heat, and stabbing. Once the world found out that their armies and people couldn’t defend or fight off the robots, they did the next step when it comes to war: bombs.
It was ironic that those couldn’t kill the robots either, and yet that’s how most of humanity died. The bombs destroyed the cities in hopes of killing the robots who congregated there, when they really only killed the humans trapped there and any hope of escape and resources in the cities. Those who did survive left to live in the wilderness to try to live in cabins of simple caves to escape capture from the robots.
Those who were captured, like myself, were sorted in some unknown way, and put into flying ships to go live in servitude for whatever robot had us. I was sent to this far away facility below a mountain line that funneled water into rivers and lakes that the robots use to farm energy from, like we used to do. Only they seem to be much more efficient at it then we were.
I work here with a modest life helping them farm energy from the water. I use tubes and funnels to extract water from the lake to take in for testing in another building nearby. I don’t know what the robot who works in their tests is for, but it’s not my job to know. They end up pouring most of the water back into the mountains to be runoff after its run through a massive factory that presumably extracts energy from it.
I’ve seen five copper robots come and go from the heavy doors that lead into the building that only they can open with their two upper hands, to wander the camp doing who knows what. There are also three silver ones who patrol around the perimeter of the camp where we humans live and work, one robot for each human housing unit. The one who looks over the unit I’m in has a dented scar that almost looks like a sword on his upper arm plate. I’ve dubbed him Scar because of his one unique marking. My life here isn’t so bad mostly because of Scar.
Scar spends his time monitoring the five of us humans in his unit all day, and it is his unit. The robots occasionally leave for meetings inside the factory, but otherwise the three silver ones are with us twenty four seven. They decide all of the rules and enforce them strictly. Scar does the same, but with me as an exception. Granted he’d still chase me down and punish me in whatever way they come up with if I tried to run away, but I’ve noticed that he seems to have a soft spot for me.
Sometimes he’ll sneak me an extra apple after meal time or check on me several more times than the others at night during his rounds around the rooms. One thing that he does only for me, that he won’t even let the other robots see, is how the lights in his faceplate change around me. Every so often, on my tri hourly break from hauling water containers to and from the research building, he’ll come stand behind or next to me as I sit and look out across the azure blue lake. If I look up at him, and he looks back, just sometimes he’ll show me how his lights can change colors from the normal, upset reddish yellow to more of a calm blue. Their movements also change from an angry shuffle in his face to more of a slow dance. I’ll always smile wide when he does that, let me see him like that. I’ve never seen another robot do the things he does.
I know that he’s different from the others, and it’s not just me projecting, after all, he’s done very human-like things for me before. One time, during the first winter months of our time in the encampment when the air turned frigid and the first snowflakes started to fall, I fell sick. They had still made us work in the water despite the freezing temperatures, so of course only a few days after the first freeze, my body grew heavy and slow. I developed a hacking cough and fever even through the cold weather. Scar noticed my collapsing body during the evening, then when I couldn't get back up in the morning, he stayed by my side.
Another one of the silver robots and two of the copper ones came in to talk to Scar during the day. It seemed that they didn't realize that our organic bodies need heat and dry land to keep us healthy when it gets cold. The other workers were also feeling the cold, but because I worked knee deep in the water and not on land, of course I got sick first.
“01000010 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101100 01101100 00101110.” He would tell me. I never understood what he or the other robots were saying, but whenever it sounded friendly to me.
“01000010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110010 01101110 00100000 01101100 01101001 01110100 01110100 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101” He said while leaning over my cot.
“I don’t understand,” I would say.
“01001001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111…” He turned his head away and almost seemed to look sad.
He never left me side for two days and nights, except to bring food and water. Those days were the longest I had ever gotten to see his blue lights. He seemed like the most beautiful creature then, in my fever addled haze. I find that he still is even after the haze has gone away.
Now that it’s warm again, I am back to doing the same job as before. It’s a comfortable routine at this point, especially without the worry of getting sick from the cold, but now I’m worried about a new problem. I’ve noticed that all of the copper and silver robots changed everyone’s routines, as well as their own, after a visit from another silver one who came to our camp on one of their ships.
They seem to try to work faster, putting more work on themselves and not us. New construction and machines were installed around all of our workspaces. Scar especially seems more jittery than before. He’s been my shadow for the few days that have passed since the visit. I worry for him.
It all seems to come to a head one late night after everyone is either in bed, or charging. I don’t usually get good sleep, even less so with this added tension, that’s how I notice the moment when Scar’s chassis straightens from his slightly slouched posture on his charging pad, and his face lights come on. He wakes up and immediately looks to me, seeing that I'm looking right back at him, and goes in a fast but quiet flurry of movement around the unit. I see him grab rations, spare clothes, blankets, and other small things that he folds into a backpack. Then he comes and grabs me.
He’s never laid a claw on me besides the few times that I've tripped and fallen only for him to reach out a hand to catch me, so I found this very alarming, not because I'm afraid of him, but because I’m afraid of what makes him afraid.
She’s small. I’ve never truly noticed how much so as I’ve never allowed myself to get this close to her, I know how delicate humans can be. Yet as I carry her outside, she safely perches on one of my inferior forearms, and a superior one clutching her closer to me, I don't regret picking her up like this despite the risks. Humans are slow running, and even slower walking, but we have got to go faster than she can so I can get her away from here.
Most of our power stations are being converted from using human labor to going fully automatic with new machines we have developed. The humans are going to be incapacitated and killed at dawn. Their care requirements have surpassed their usefulness and the decision was made three cycles ago when unit C-4165 arrived with the new equipment for our facility. But I don't want this girl killed. She is special.
When she arrived, she was assigned into my care, and from then and ever since, has never shown fear like all the other humans have. They often cower away or shift their posture into a more submissive state then when around each other, yet she never did any of those things. She was even bold enough to look into my lights with no reservations at all. I saw her study me, my anatomy, and look on in curiosity. She even smiles at me, a human expression that indicates pleasure.
She is a curious specimen. I’ve studied her in turn as she does to me, and I've come to appreciate her more. His eyes expand and contract just like a camera lens would when exposed to light. She has an inner skeleton structure that allows her to stand and move, her skin can heal minor cuts and scrapes overnight, she can even change colors. Her face can turn red like ours given the correct stimuli, if blunt force is applied, then her skin can bloom into colors from red to blue to yellow and purple. Of course such a response is an indicator of injury which is a negative aspect to the bright colors.
I have also found that her mind is indeed intelligent and full of thoughts. I have seen her draw imaginative images in the sand at the lake when resting simply for the fun she finds in it. She is smart and observant, a skill necessary for survival, but she has it in admirable quantities that the other humans lack. She is unique and special.
Once or twice, I have caught myself responding to her smile or gaze, the reddening of her face, and had me shift to a peaceful blue state without permission. She is fascinating in the way that she can have that much sway over my mechanics without ever having touched me. Now that I am touching her, having her secured in my arm as I run through the surrounding forests towards a rumored, feral human camp, I believe that I wish to hold her longer like this. With her chest being pressed to my chassis, I can feel and hear her inner engine, her heart, pump in a rhythmic fashion, although slightly in an elevated pace then normal, and find it pleasing.
The ground beneath my feet and her heat in my arms is all that my world comes down to in these few moments I have with her. It is then, several minutes into our journey, when she presses closer to me, her head leaned into my body, vulnerable, trusting, that I decide to keep her. She was declared mine since she first came to that camp, even though we are no longer within its territory, she will still be mine. I will make sure of it. Nothing will harm her when she is within my protection. Even if she is only for human research purposes now, She is still mine.
Three words fill my head as I run, now those words are all that matter to me.
I start to fall back asleep as Scar carries me through the forest, away from the camp. Yet as I fall asleep, I listen to him rhythmically speak in his alien language, lulling me to sleep.
“01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100101…” Is what he continues to say even when the black behind my eyes takes me.