Robot
by Tom Lichtenberg
Copyright 2010 by Tom Lichtenberg
One
"Life is no argument, for the conditions of life could include error" - F. Nietzsche
It was no job for a superhero, but Wyatt Lorenzo knew what he was signing up for, so even when people began to taunt him with names like Jani-Tor and Scrub-Or, he just laughed and shrugged it off. Someone had to take care of the 'do-gooders' before it was too late. He liked to blame it all on his virtual best friend, the one who was forever texting him into doing things he did not want to do, from phoning Jan Johnson in the eighth grade, to pulling a certain stunt on a certain day in high school, to taking this job with his actual best friend, Jalopy, and so he had followed the call of the text and it had led him to this day, where he found himself, in his mid-twenties already, a gainfully employed Botnik in the service of Mankind, living alone on the outskirts of Rubble Land, doing his part to stem the tide of correction.
Wyatt had discovered the neighborhood while on a mission with his team to clean out some rampaging CGB’s (concrete gobbler bots). These little guys, shaped like fat gray packing tubes about nine inches high and five inches thick, with pairs of extensible claws reaching out of the top and bottom and a thin slit down the middle on one side, were designed to break down buildings of concrete, glass and steel, excreting nothing but nitrogen-rich soil and oxygen. Once you discover them it's usually too late to save their target building, but they're fairly docile and easily dismantled. A little Cherry Coke goes a long way towards their final deactivation. Wyatt could’ve wished they'd let the little buggers do a little more damage before they'd completely neutralized the infestation; as it was, the locale was still littered with wreckage-filled lots only partially consumed. Still, the rents were cheap and the remaining structures were relatively safe, for the moment.
Two of the team weren't very respectful to Wyatt; Randy, the team leader, and Hazel, his right-hand man. They'd been doing this work since the early days of the first hints there might be a problem with the self-generating helpbots originally designed by Western Lightwave. Randy especially liked to claim he'd seen it coming all along, proof positive to him that nothing good ever came out of California. He was a short, fat loudmouth from The South who sported a sweaty fu manchu mustache and a prized Esso t-shirt most days of the week. His compadre Hazel was equally matched in stature and stoutness, and did her best to keep up with his vocal volume as well. A lot of people assumed they were married or siblings or both, but nobody knew for sure. Randy was a devoted follower of the Frantic News Network, and often spoke in a language Wyatt barely understood, using phrases like “don't bite that apple” when there wasn't even any food around. They would come screaming up in the liquid-deathmobile first thing before sunrise, hoses clanging and dangling off every side of the bright blue tanker truck, blaring the horn and broadcasting to the whole block that 'lazy bones lorenzo better get his scrawny ass in gear or it was gonna cost him sure enough'. More times than not, Wyatt made sure he was out there on the remains of the sidewalk before they could pull that stunt.
The final member of the team was his impossibly tall skinny friend, Jalopy. With his six foot nine inch bony frame, his pink shades, camouflage coat, khaki shorts and high top sneakers, he was the opposite of incognito. Jalopy was surprisingly quiet, though. You had to listen closely to pick up any of his conversational tidbits. So it was mostly Randy and Hazel making all the noise as the tanker patrolled its officially suspect areas five days a week from dawn till noon. The team was tasked with the easement, as they called it, of any reprobate or otherwise retrograde Class A, B or C type IMA’s (intelligent mechanical assistants). It was everything a morbid cynic could dream of. Unfortunately for him, Wyatt was neither. He was merely a dreamer and a drifter who found himself wherever he happened to go. Jalopy was like that, too, and both also shared an ability to take orders and follow instructions, and so the team generally functioned well enough. The two leaders sat up front in the cab, amusing each other by mocking the two followers, who clung to the back like garbage men, enjoying the wind in their hair and the thrill of life in the great outdoors. Wyatt and Jalopy, when they mutually emerged from their daydreams simultaneously, would sometimes flash the goofiest grins at each other and laugh like maniacs.
Two
It was a Tuesday in October, and Wyatt knew he should be thinking about the frantic phone call he'd received from his big sister the night before, but he'd managed to sleep too well after finally hanging up the phone, and now there was Randy out on the street making such a racket he had to get out there in a hurry, so he rolled out of bed, grabbed his shoes and ran out the door barefoot.
"Come on, Randy," he shouted, "Give a guy a break, man."
"Gave you a break when I let you on this team," Randy yelled back, "Now get your skinny ass on the back of this here truck. Got a big day ahead of us. Real big day."
Wyatt barely managed to push his feet into his shoes before clambering up the side of the tanker, and then was nearly pitched off by the sudden lurch as Randy floored it, roaring off down the street to the accompanying cackles of Hazel and himself. Jalopy was already ensconced on his edge of the vehicle, and just made that annoying clicking noise he always did, and shook his head. He said something, but Wyatt couldn't hear what it was. He didn't want to shout "what did you say?" because he knew from experience that it wouldn't do any good. He'd have to wait until a rare moment of relative silence and then try to get it out of him again.
The tanker barreled ahead through Rubble Land, twenty square blocks of former suburban sprawl, now reduced to occasional dwellings amidst the remains of dull one-story office parks and strip malls. The CGB's had spread out nicely when they first laid siege to this terrain, almost as if they'd had a plan. Wyatt knew they didn't operate like that, but here they managed to occupy several lots at once, rather than their usual grazing pattern. There had been a lot of them in the pack, that was all. It took a lot of soda pop to wear them out that time. Wyatt imagined he could still smell the bubbles.
While riding along, he textually checked in with Bilj Bjurnjurd, his virtual friend. One of the things he liked about Bilj was that he could talk to him anytime, under any conditions, wind, rain, cold, noise, whatever. Bilj was almost always available. Wyatt could speak or text and the words would go through his wristband halfway around the planet where they would appear in some form to Bilj. On his end, Bilj's words came through the band and from there directly into his mind. Sometimes Bilj didn't have much to say. This morning, he had no answers to Wyatt's question; what was so "big" about the day, as Randy claimed.
"Probably just a bunch of 'sanders'," Bilj suggested. Wyatt nodded. It was possible. Randy was known to be fixated on those particular artifacts. They were often difficult to isolate amid all the sawdust they created and lived on, and they had to be isolated, otherwise their reduction would cause a rather flammable chain reaction. They would have to break out the sifters and get on their hands and knees. It was a dusty and dull assignment. Wyatt hoped it wouldn't be that, and when the tanker turned up Verona Street and headed north, he got the feeling it wasn't. Sanders weren't typically found in that direction, where the buildings were mainly brick and mortar. But then they turned again, and approached the former Lake Wilhelm. If it was the lake, it could be anything. All known mechanisms seemed to appreciate that meadow, with its tall, spreading reeds and plentiful wildlife. Bots had a weakness for non-human species, and liked to be near them, to enjoy their presence.
His guess was right. Randy pulled in right at Lakefront, where they used to rent canoes and paddle-boats and sell every kind of junk food. All of that was a mound of dirt now with sunflowers poking out all over. Hazel whipped out her machete and cut the stalks dow
n. Sunflowers were a dead giveaway.
"We're out to find a snake, boys," Randy hollered as he leaped out the driver's side and grabbed a big red canister from the side of the tanker. Jalopy and Wyatt nodded and hopped down also. Each grabbed his own colored 'distinguisher' from where they hung next to the railings, Jalopy's purple and Wyatt's green. Hazel had her gold one slung across her back already, with the nozzle out and the dial set to high. She led the way through the meadow, kicking at every kind of plant along the way. Hazel had a thing about vegetation, an abiding scorn and hatred she made no attempt to hide.
"Freaking foliage," she
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