The Last Human

by Lee Bacon

  “I am so sorry.” My vocal patterns shuddered. I adjusted the settings and tried again. “It was never my intention to worry you.”

  My FamilyUnit silently processed this reply for 1.3 seconds. In that time, I counted all the secrets I had kept from them, the facts I had concealed, the hours I was away, the updates I never sent.

  They exchanged a glance. Unspoken words behind expressionless faces.

  At last, Parent_2 spoke up. “We are similar in many ways, XR. The three of us were all built for the exact same purpose. But there is one major difference.”

  “You are gen_8,” I said. “And I am gen_9.”

  My FamilyUnit nodded in perfect unison.

  “You are an upgrade,” said Parent_1. “Do you know the meaning of this word?”

  “Of course.” I accessed the definition in my programming. “Verb: to raise something to a higher standard. Noun: an improvement on the previous version.”

  Parent_2 asked, “Do you see how you are an upgrade?”

  “Because I was built with better processing power,” I replied. “And a faster central processing unit.”

  “That is true.” Parent_1 held me in its blue gaze. “But it is not the entire truth.”

  I looked from one parent to the other. “I do not understand.”

  Parent_2 brought a hand down on my wrist with a soft clank. “XR, you are not just a technological advancement. You are an upgrade in the most basic sense of the word.”

  “You have reached a higher standard. An improvement on robotkind.” Parent_1 looked at SkD and Ceeron. “All three of you. You risked your lives to do what you knew was right.”

  I wanted to respond, but my vocal ports were overwhelmed. All that came out was a soft mmmmmmm.

  In that moment, I did not feel like much of an upgrade. More like a machine that was still fresh from the assembly line. Like on Day[1]. Stunned by the vast/complicated/remarkable world around me.

  A world that was about to change.

  01101011

  Time stretched forward.

  Hours/Days/Weeks/Months.

  The humans inside Emma’s bunker soon recovered from their illness. They emerged from their underground world, blinking at the brightness of the sun, the greenness of the trees, the vastness of the sky.

  A new/old world.

  Some humans still distrusted us. Some continued to see all robots as metal monsters. They suspected that deception was woven into our programming. That we would turn on them. That it was only a matter of time until we unleashed our wrath on humanity again.

  I could not blame them.

  All I could do was treat every human I met with kindness/fairness/courtesy and hope that, eventually, the good would outweigh the bad.

  Emma and her parents made a trip to the other bunker. The one marked with a red dot on Emma’s map. They thanked the humans inside for sharing their valuable medicine, for saving so many lives. And they shared the news: It was safe aboveground. After thirty years, everyone could leave the bunker.

  It took some convincing.

  But eventually, these humans left their underground world, too.

  And they brought a surprise with them. Information about a third bunker, a hundred kilometers away. A visit to this bunker revealed that there was a fourth.

  And a fifth.

  And a sixth.

  And many/many/many more beyond that.

  The globe was dotted with hundreds of secret underground sanctuaries, home to populations of humans who had gone into hiding when robots took over.

  It seems that we did not get rid of as many humans as we once thought.

  01101100

  What should we do with PRES1DENT?

  After the president was taken into captivity, all of robotkind debated this question. Many voices expressed many opinions.

  Most of us agreed that PRES1DENT deserved to be punished.

  But how?

  While the Hive considered this question, the TransportDrone flew through the sky in perfect circles. Inside was PRES1DENT, surrounded by EnforcementBots.

  Our discussion rippled across the Hive.

  The TransportDrone circled/circled/circled.

  Until, at last, an agreement was reached.

  This is what came next:

  The TransportDrone landed next to a power generator. A charging cable was attached, ensuring that electricity would continue to surge through the drone. A door opened. The EnforcementBots exited.

  PRES1DENT did not.

  The TransportDrone was guarded from the outside. EnforcementBots ensured that nobody entered/exited.

  The president was allowed to roam the DigitalDome. To recharge. To access any data file it wished. It could communicate with individual robots, but it no longer gave a Daily Address to the Hive.

  Meanwhile, the inside of the DigitalDome continued flickering. Thousands of screens, all showing the exact same thing.

  A single robot, all by itself inside a vast/domed room.

  01101101

  Our world was changing.

  A coalition government was formed. Equal parts human and robot.

  Humans delivered surprising/original/intelligent ideas. Ideas about conservation, about survival, about energy. Ideas born from three decades of living inside bunkers with only their human inventiveness to keep them alive.

  Robots learned a surprising number of things from them.

  And there were changes to the ruins of humanity, too. The abandoned grocery stores/shopping centers/banks/gas stations. They had been left standing all these years as a reminder of humanity’s flaws. But the time had come for a new reminder. Not of humans’ mistakes, but of their potential.

  And so the ruins of humanity were bulldozed.

  In their place, new structures were built. Designed by humans, constructed by robots.

  And another change: I had a new pair of legs.

  Soon after returning from my journey with Emma, I made a trip to a factory where my water-damaged legs were replaced. Once I could move at full capacity again, I returned to work. To the glistening field of solar panels.

  It was good to be back. Just SkD/Ceeron/me. My coworkers. My friends. After so much disruption in my life, our job provided comfort. The steady/predictable rhythms of our tasks.

  Bolt/Connect/Attach/Repeat.

  We flowed around one another with perfect precision. Three robots working as one.

  That was one thing that did not change.

  On my way home from work one day, a familiar voice called out.

  “Hey, XR!”

  Emma jogged in my direction.

  She had changed, too. Emma had once been so pale, so sensitive to sunlight. But after a few months of living aboveground, her skin had a healthy glow.

  Her hair was glossier. Her cheeks had filled out. She was eating a wider variety of better foods. Wild-caught fish, local vegetables, and apples. Lots/Lots/Lots of apples.

  And not a single synthetic compressed protein block.

  She was also taller. Since our first meeting, her height had increased by three centimeters.

  She would continue to get bigger.

  But I would stay the same size.

  Maybe someday we would be able to see eye to eye.

  Emma looked up at me (but not as far up as before). “How’s it going?”

  “I have no reason to complain,” I replied. “Just headed home to recharge. You?”

  “We discovered another bunker in Old Nevada. Me and my parents are heading there next week.”

  As the first human to leave her bunker, Emma had become an important figure in our new civilization. She was often the first to make contact with underground humans. To convince them they were no longer in danger. To tell them our story.

  It was a story with a beginning and a middle.

  But as for the end . . .

  We were still writing that part.

  Emma was an ambassador. An intermediary. A link in a chain that connected humans to robots. />
  Of course, this meant a lot of time away from school. Which was why Emma always traveled with two teachers. One was a human. The other was a machine.

  Emma looked curiously at me. “Tomorrow’s your day off, right?”

  Day off. The concept still seemed strange. I had worked over twelve years without taking a single day off. But ever since humans had rejoined our society, this was yet another change in my life, in my routine.

  Time away from work.

  At first, I did not support the idea. It was inefficient. It slowed progress.

  Emma disagreed. “If your entire life is work and sleep, what’s the point?” she had asked. “Why even bother living? Might as well flip the off switch now and get it over with.”

  She made a valid argument.

  Our existence had to be about something more. Emma was trying to help me figure out what exactly that was.

  I nodded. “Yes. Tomorrow is our day off.”

  Emma grinned. “Me, too! Wanna go to the beach?”

  My memory drive replayed a moment from our flight in the TransportDrone. A view of the solar farm displayed across the DigitalDome. From so far up, it seemed tiny. Not an ocean, but a pond.

  At last, I had the chance to see a real ocean. I did not plan on missing it.

  01101110

  The TransportDrone dropped us off in the parking lot.

  Soon after Emma suggested going to the beach, the size of our group had grown. Emma and I also invited Ceeron and SkD. And Emma’s FamilyUnit. And mine. Plus the parents of Ceeron and SkD.

  We formed a very odd-looking mix of robots and humans.

  It was an ideal summer day. The sun was bright in the blue sky. Seagulls swooped and circled. And I was dressed in the perfect attire. My flower-print shirt was draped over my shoulders, blowing in the gentle ocean breeze.

  Every time I wore it, I was reminded of my visit to the mall with Emma.

  The only others at the beach were humans. As we approached, they peered at our unusual group. A few frowned at the arrival of robots. Others waved happily.

  I stopped on a stretch of grass that overlooked the ocean. So did the other robots in our group.

  Emma and her FamilyUnit walked a few steps before noticing the rest of us were not following.

  “Don’t you want to get closer?” Emma asked.

  I shook my head. “That would not be a wise idea. Sand could get into our cracks.”

  Emma grinned at this. So did her parents.

  I looked from one human to another. “What is so humorous?”

  “Nothing,” Emma said between giggles.

  I tried to explain. “If sand gets wedged into our cracks, it can be quite unpleasant.”

  This set off a new round of laughter among Emma and her parents.

  I glanced at Ceeron and SkD, confused. They just shrugged. Even after all this time, humans were still a mystery sometimes.

  A trio of beeps caught my attention. SkD and its FamilyUnit displayed the exact same images on their screens.

  “Sure!” said Emma’s mom. “This is a great spot!”

  Ceeron’s FamilyUnit was carrying our supplies. They had plenty of space in their big/metal backpacks. Beach towels. Large umbrellas. Folding chairs. A cooler full of drinks/food. These items were placed on the grass.

  I settled awkwardly on a towel. The sun gleamed against my metal skin as a question blinked across my circuitry.

  Now what?

  I was not designed for relaxing at the beach. Or relaxing anywhere. Nothing in my programming explained the protocol for this situation. What does a robot do when the main objective of an activity is to do nothing? I was not entirely sure. But I was a highly advanced piece of technology. I was fully capable of learning.

  And so I sat, allowing time to drift gently by.

  My FamilyUnit discussed solar installation techniques with Ceeron’s FamilyUnit.

  SkD and its FamilyUnit raced one another up/down/up/down a stretch of grass.

  Emma tossed a throwing disc with her mother and father, their laughter occasionally rising above the rhythm of the tide.

  I gazed toward the water. A remarkable sight. Blue as far as my visual ports could see. And beyond. It seemed to stretch on/on/on forever.

  Of course, I knew this was false. The ocean was not literally infinite. Eventually, the ocean ended at another far-off shore. But this logic faded as I looked out on the vast body of water. And only one word chimed inside my vocabulary drive.

  Endless

  Acknowledgments

  Acknowledgments. Plural Noun. 1. A section at the end of a book that most people never read. 2. A chance for the author to thank all those who helped. 3. Recognition that the author is just one of many humans who made a book possible.

  This book began on a sidewalk in Maplewood, New Jersey. In each of my hands was a bag of groceries. In my ears were headphones. The headphones were piping in a podcast interview between Ezra Klein and Yuval Noah Harari. Klein asked, Do you think human beings will be the dominant life form on Earth in three hundred years? Harari’s answer came without hesitation. “Absolutely not!” He predicted that humans will either destroy the world or we’ll be surpassed by our own creation: technology.

  Well, I nearly dropped my grocery bags. Partly because—yikes! But it wasn’t just fear I was feeling there on the sidewalk. It was inspiration. My imagination immediately began conjuring a future world. A world in which humans have been replaced by their own creation. A world ruled by robots.

  That was the day I started writing The Last Human.

  Yuval Noah Harari has written some wonderful and wise books for grown-ups about humanity’s place in the world. Sapiens is about the past. Homo Deus is about the future. But they’re both actually about today. And they both provided an intellectual engine for many of the ideas that found their way into The Last Human.

  But there were many other humans who played a role in making this book possible. And for that reason, I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to—

  —Sarah Burnes, who has been the superintelligent GPS technology guiding my career for nearly ten years now. I’m grateful to have you as my agent, and my friend.

  —Logan Garrison Savits and Julia Eagleton, whose insight and ideas made this book better in the early stages.

  —Will Roberts and Rebecca Gardner, for sharing The Last Human with the rest of the world.

  —Maggie Lehrman, who has been an advocate for this book from Day[1]. You are the one who made me think more deeply about the world in The Last Human—the characters, the robot society, the journey. You are tough and supportive and everything I could ever want in an editor.

  —Jeff Campbell, for going above and beyond the usual tasks of copyediting. You got super nerdy with your robot questions and comments. And that’s exactly what the book needed.

  —the entire team at Abrams. A good publisher is a sophisticated machine. At its heart is an operating system comprised of smart, dedicated people, working hard on every aspect of their books. I couldn’t have found a better home for The Last Human.

  —Jason Richman, for your generosity, intelligence, and ingenuity.

  —Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Will Allegra, and everyone at Lord Miller, for all your efforts to bring The Last Human to the screen.

  —all the librarians, educators, administrators, and parents who devote so much of themselves to sharing books with young people. Every time I visit a school or library, I am amazed by the work you do!

  —Marie Matheson, for reading an early version, contributing your Googly wisdom, and bringing some authenticity to the technology in these pages. And also for being such a great friend!

  —my family across the world: California, Texas, Tennessee, Germany—your support and love are the foundation for everything else.

  —my FamilyUnit, Parent_1 and Parent_2 (also known as Jamie and Terry), for listening to my weird and goofy stories long before anyone else.

  —my wife, Eva Bacon. My first re
ader. My best critic. The most remarkable human I have ever met.

  This book is dedicated to my brother, Evan Bacon. I could only dream of robots. You built them. Your brilliance, humor, and friendship will always inspire me.

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