The Robot Union

by D Miller

'Oooh how shocking,' said Robbie, and his hoover motor whined, inflating his hose and making it float up in his hand.

  'Yes,' said Omo, 'and it's our job to save Rose's life by cleaning her house before her husband–' 'What's his name?' said Robbie.

  'His name is Mac and he's a sailor. He expects to come home from a long and dangerous sea voyage to a nice clean home and if he sees this mess and finds out that Rose has spent all their money buying new plates and is having an affair with their next door neighbour–'

  'What's–'

  'Whose name is John, a robot overseer in the mines, then he's going to stab Rose to death with a frozen carrot and run away with Fred who is John's boyfriend.'

  'Does Fred know about the affair?'

  'Yeah dude and Fred can't understand it because Fred loves hoovering and his house is spotless.'

  'Poor Fred,' said Robbie. 'People are strange.'

  Once the rubbish was collected, Dex dragged the container back outside, Robbie finished hoovering then Robbie and Omo scrubbed the floor. Once this was done Omo claimed Robbie to help him with the decorations, while Dex carried in portable heaters, floor coverings, tables, chairs, and boxes of equipment and supplies brought by Camilla and her crew. They worked under the guidance of Antoine, a human designer who was arranging various ice sculptures around the room, and worrying about the arrival of the ship, which was supposed to bring some of the food for the party, particularly the fresh fruit. Antoine had given Omo the task of making table decorations – Omo was to fold paper into iconic Antarctic animals, starting with Adélie penguins, and set them down the centre of the table interspersed with fresh fruit, candles, and flowers from the hydroponics sheds. Omo took a piece of paper from a stack that Antoine had given him, it was black on one side, and white on the other. He complained that he had asked the designer for square paper – 'humans never listen dude' – and gave Robbie the task of cutting the excess paper from each sheet, leaving a perfect square. Robbie got to work, and had just finished his second piece when he stopped to watch as Omo's hands made numerous folds in the paper, almost too fast for him to follow, and finished by presenting him with a tiny penguin, complete with beak, wings and feet.

  'Origami dude – the art of folding.'

  Robbie took the penguin and inspected it closely.

  'It's an ancient Japanese art – it's how we got this gig – Camilla's company uses our laundry for their table linen and she saw some of my work.'

  'Can you do a whale?'

  Omo held out his hand, Robbie placed the second piece of paper he had squared in it. Omo began folding. Twice he changed his mind about a fold after making it, but even so in under a minute he had finished. Robbie held out his hand and Omo laid the whale on it. He brought it up to his eye level. Omo had folded the paper so that the whale was mostly black, one white eye seemed to be looking at Robbie.

  'It's a bit rough,' said Omo, 'I've never–'

  'It's perfect.'

  Omo leaned towards Robbie, Robbie backed away.

  'Dude!' said Omo.

  He beckoned Robbie closer with his finger. Slowly Robbie leaned towards Omo, when they were nearly nose to nose Omo kissed Robbie on his cheek. Robbie straightened up, he could feel the imprint of Omo's lips, sinking slowly into his skin. Omo pointed at the stack of un-squared paper.

  'Back to work dude.'

  After the warehouse was ready for the party Dex and Omo negotiated with Camilla about payment. Robbie asked one of the humans for a something to dust with, the young woman who had procured the battery fluid for them. She gave him a cloth and a spray bottle of all purpose cleaner, with a smile.

  'What's this party for?' he said.

  'It's to celebrate the first ship since the port closed down for the winter. Everybody is coming.'

  'Everybody?' Robbie looked around the warehouse. 'How will they all fit?'

  She laughed. 'No, I mean everyone who is anyone is coming, the Mayor, the director of the mine, the police chief, there's even a rumour that President Dobbs himself may come.' She pointed to the buckets and mops in one corner. 'Just put them over there when you're done with it.' With a friendly smile she went back to work.

  Robbie walked casually to the back of the warehouse where Dex had stacked the unused equipment, and the spare fruit that had finally been delivered ten minutes ago. He opened and used the cloth and the spray to clean his abdominal cavity which was dusty from all the vacuuming he had done. The warehouse was much larger in area than the house, he had found that he had had to stop often and empty himself. Robbie quickly ransacked the boxes and stuffed into his newly clean cavity one of the unused paper covers that the humans had laid on top of the white linen table cloths, and then as much of the just delivered fruit as would fit.

  They left the way they had come, retreating to the road, the fence, then staggering once more along the rocky coastline, sparing not even one backward glance towards the container ship now docked and being unloaded and with its presence bringing the port to life.

  'Wait,' said Robbie. 'I heard something.' He stared out at the ocean. 'I think I heard a whale.'

  'Dude how could you hear a whale?'

  'I heard it blowing water from its blow hole.'

  Robbie searched the ocean with his infra red vision.

  'Robbie, dude it's too early for whales.'

  'Nonsense,' said Dex, 'it is never too early for a valiant creature whose ancestors survived everything that the murderous inventiveness of the avaricious monkeys could bring to bear against them. WELCOME GLORIOUS BEAST OF THE MYSTERIOUS DEEPS!'

  Robbie looked where Dex was looking, and thought he glimpsed something massive slapping the surface of the ocean.

  'Dex dude there's nothing there. And my ears are leaking.'

  'Once the oceans were filled with whales – uncountable millions upon millions of them. People hunted them until they were nearly gone,' said Robbie. 'The blue whale is the largest animal ever in the history of the world. You could fit comfortably inside one of its arteries. Once people couldn't even hunt it, it was too big, until someone designed an exploding harpoon.'

  'Ah,' said Dex, 'the boybot is an historian.'

  'The sun rises in three weeks – then there will be whales,' said Omo. 'Now there are just hallucinations.'

  'Perhaps this one was the advance party,' said Robbie.

  'Sure,' said Omo, 'the other whales told him listen dude, you just go on ahead and find us a nice quiet spot where there aren't too many drunken robots roaring their way along the beach and scaring the plankton.'

  'Makes sense to me,' said Dex.

  As they hiked along the shore at some point Robbie realised they had passed the exit / entrance to the settlement's tunnels, and were approaching a huge shape. As they got closer he could see it was a ship, lying on its side. Had it been run aground in a winter storm? But what would it have been doing on the ocean in winter? And how could any storm ground something so massive? Even in the twilight Robbie could tell that it had been damaged by successive storms, but was so huge it was holding up. When they reached the ruined ship he stopped and pinged to see if there was anyone on board, but nothing came back. He wondered if his ping could even reach to the end of the vessel, could there be machine intelligences on board watching them?

  Omo put his arm around Robbie, and smiled at him.

  'Colossal isn't it?' said Dex.

  Robbie said nothing since the feel of Omo's arm around him had driven all thought from his head. He looked past the ship, further along the shore. They were approaching the old oil refinery complex Dex had told him about earlier. He thought he saw something move in the rocks and then something hit him in the chest and he fell, hitting his head and other parts of his body, and laying stunned for a moment while hearing an animal snarling.

  Omo helped Robbie to his feet, then straightened Robbie's jacket collar and patted his shoulders and chest. 'You're OK dude.'

  'Are you alright?' said Dex. 'Wretched animal.'

  'I'm not
an animal,' said Robbie.

  'Oh dude, he doesn't mean you.'

  Robbie realised that Dex was holding a dog in the air, by the scruff of its neck. The snarling had stopped. He looked at the dog, it had a black and white shaggy coat and the face of a sheepdog, as far as Robbie could tell from a quick database search.

  'Yeah, don't worry about me, I'm fine,' said the dog. 'Luckily it didn't hurt when your friend bounced me off his chest and into all those razor sharp rocks.'

  'Why did you attack me?' said Robbie.

  'Yeah, alright, you can let go,' said the dog to Dex.

  Dex complied and the dog sat down on a nearly flat rock. He licked one of his paws.

  'I think I've lost one of my pads, not that anyone cares.'

  'Rex,' said Dex, 'Robbie asked you a question.'

  'Oh Robbie is it? No one tells me anything. He tripped one of my security sensors.'

  'So you attacked him?' said Omo. 'What were you thinking? You must have been able to see he was with us?'

  'You could have been his prisoners.'

  Omo looked from the dog to Robbie. He gave Robbie an assessing look then looked at Dex. Robbie guessed what he was thinking, Robbie was a normal size for a robot, and probably twice as strong as a human male of a comparable size, but he was no match for Dex. The dog stood and shook himself.

  'So as usual I suppose I'll get no thanks for being on top of my job.'

  Dex shut his eyes. He opened them again. 'It's good that your security systems are so comprehensive.'

  Rex padded closer to Robbie and stopped. He looked up at him. 'I'll be watching you,' he said, then with a twist of his body he disappeared into the rocks. For a while they could hear his paws clicking and scrabbling along the shore.

  'Sorry about that dude.'

  Questions buzzed through Robbie's head, the biggest one being would Omo put his arm around him again?

  'I'm OK.'

  They continued along the beach. 'We're going to the old refinery aren't we?' Robbie said.

  'Yes indeed. But what do you think we will find there?' said Dex.

  'Robots? Are you meeting other friends there? Is Rex there?'

  'Don't worry about old Rex dude. He'll get used to you.'

  Robbie found that the ground was flattening out, no longer rocky and wild but the weathered remains of an ancient attempt at taming and levelling the landscape. Now he could see the vastness of the refinery complex. Buildings towered above him into the starry sky, while all around him snaked conduits and on the floor small patches of snow had blown against a litter of broken pipes and temperature gauges and indeterminate bits of metal and plastic. Following Dex and Omo he walked deeper into the structure.

  Robbie felt something cold on his neck. He looked up, then uncovered and turned on his head-torch. He was walking underneath a huge building on stilts; above him was the underside of its floor. Clinging motionlessly to the underside were thousands of small robots, snake robots that could investigate pipes or search rubble, spider bots that could run through mine fields or up the side of buildings, and various kinds of stack-bots, that could work independently but could also combine with other stack bots to form new robots with new functions. While they did not move they were wound around each other in a way that suggested they had stopped while engaged in writhing and jostling for space. Snow had blown under the floor and a few flakes were caught here and there in the twists and turns of the robot bodies. In one corner Robbie saw a light, so he walked towards it. He found that a scorpion robot and a robot that looked like a miniature centaur were awake. The light came from the head of the scorpion, projected into the opened body of one of the unmoving bots. The scorpion robot ignored Robbie, but the centaur gave him a look of power, and contempt, from his upside down perch. Robbie jumped when he realised that Omo had come up next to him.

  Omo signalled for a secure connection. 'Strange aren't they?' he said.

  'Are they dead?' asked Robbie.

  'No dude, waiting for the sun to rise.'

  'How do they get the sun under here?'

  'Those dudes,' Omo indicated the scorpion and centaur above them with a lift of his chin. 'They will drag them out when the sun rises.'

  'What are they doing to that bot?'

  'Rex thinks it's robot evolution. Self-guided evolution. Or something like that.'

  'Where have they all come from?'

  'I think some run away, some get blown off course and those dudes kidnap some of them.' Again Omo lifted his chin to indicate the robots above him. Robbie looked up, as did Omo, and found again that the centaur was regarding them with cold arrogance, and contempt, while the scorpion did something in the innards of the stack-bot they were both tinkering with, using its two front claws and its prehensile tail.

  'Hello,' said Robbie.

  'Don't bother dude, they don't talk. Or broadcast. Not to us anyway.'

  Robbie heard a noise and jumped. He turned to find Dex behind him. 'You scared me,' he said.

  'Seen enough?' said Dex. 'Let us leave this accursed place to its lightless mutants.' He put an arm round Robbie's shoulders and led him forward, while Omo followed in silence.

  After a few minutes more Omo took the lead, picking his way across a ruined moonscape of land in the centre of the complex, that looked to Robbie as if it was the aftermath of an old explosion and fire, returning to a confusing array of alleys and buildings and finally coming to a building at the edge of the complex. Behind this building all was dark; looking closely Robbie could distinguish a line between the huge cliffs at the back of the complex, and the twilight sky.

  'This way dude,' Omo said, leading the way up some rusted external metal stairs that Robbie would not have dared to attempt on his own. As he ascended he was very much aware of Dex's powerful bulk bringing up the rear, his foot steps clanging on every step and making the whole stairway shudder. At the top of the stairs a door hung open, half off its hinges. There was a drift of dirty plastic rubbish inside the door, perhaps blown there by the winter winds. The building had an air of abandonment, yet Omo confidently stepped inside and set off down a dark, narrow corridor. Robbie could see that at the end of the corridor was a door that was hotter than its surroundings, then he began to hear noise. Omo opened the warm door, there was a shout of greeting; Robbie followed Omo inside.

  Robbie found himself in a room that was human sized, and so had probably once been an office. Now various things that could be sat on were arranged in a rough circle, plastic crates, office chairs, a pile of plastic bricks, even a wooden chair or two. In a corner stood a water dispenser, next to a low table with an assortment of plastic cups and tumblers on it. On one wall there was a dartboard with a piece of paper with some writing on it in pasted to the middle. A large poster of President Dobbs was on another wall, with his loyal boyfriend by his side. The president had mostly white hair, but still a firm jaw line, he was smiling, showing perfect teeth, his blue eyes were friendly, and honest. He was conservatively dressed, in contrast to his boyfriend, who was wearing dark, sharply tailored clothes, and whose much younger, sensitive and intelligent face with almond-shaped deep blue eyes outlined with long, black eyelashes, added some sex appeal to the mix. Both of them were white, and strangely well tanned, considering how little sun the continent got.

  The slogan written across the top of the poster was 'Vote for the human side' while another hand, in red ink, had crossed out human and written 'dickless'. On another wall was a print of a painting of what looked a bit like the floor of the House of Delegates building in the capital. Instead of humans filling its benches and getting up to speak, there were chimpanzees.

  In the middle of the circle formed by the furniture was an old wooden table, and on the table laid the oldest robot that Robbie had ever seen. Too old for nuskin, his body was metallic, while his form was humanoid. Sitting around the table, or standing to greet the newcomers were various robots. Omo performed introductions.

  'This is Queen Elizabeth.'

  O
mo indicated a female robot who rose to her full height (which was about a 20 centimetres lower than Robbie's) and did her best to look down her nose while saying, 'One is pleased to meet you.' She appeared to be young, with clear, rosy skin, short brown hair, and a long, unsmiling face.

  'And this is also Queen Elizabeth,' continued Omo, introducing another bot who looked just like the first, except she wore a red dress, while the other wore blue.

  'Usurper,' said the first queen to the second.

  'Prole,' replied the second.

  'How do you do,' said the second queen, turning to Robbie.

  'I'm OK,' said Robbie. The second queen gave him a disgusted look and turned away.

  A female robot with long black hair, blue eyes and a very friendly smile stepped forward. She was a wearing pair of black rubber trousers, and a sleeveless sheer top, neutral in colour, it skimmed over her chest and stomach, not doing much to hide her nipples from view.

  'I'm Lucretia,' she said, 'ignore her and her stupid etiquette – I think you are very pretty.' She stroked his arm as she said this, looking up into his eyes. Then her expression changed, she removed her hand and stepped back a little. 'I'm April,' she said, 'I'm very pleased to meet you.' She held out her hand for Robbie to take, but when he took it her expression changed again and she pulled him closer to her and kissed his lips. 'You are very pretty indeed. Rrrrrrrr.'

  'Yeah, that's enough thanks girls,' said Omo, placing a hand on Lucretia/April's arm and gently pulling her away from Robbie.

  'You girls are such whores,' said a rather old fashioned electronic voice. Robbie was confronted by a female robot with a mouth fixed in a permanent 'oh' of surprise. She was taller than Lucretia/April and the two queens, in fact she was a few millimetres taller than Robbie. She had long, shining blonde hair, somewhat metallic in colour, and large breasts. Like Robbie, Omo and Dex she was simply dressed in a t-shirt and jeans.

  'I'm Jane, from an older generation of sex workers, a generation that didn't embrace our oppression to quite the same degree.'