Of Love and Robots

By K. A. Dunn

Kylie had never seen so much bot blood.

There were drops of it, splashes and pools of it, all leading farther into the house like Gretel’s breadcrumbs. Toting her medical bag high, she watched where she placed her boots. There was nothing like getting cobalt blood on leather. It was the consistency of acid cake batter, and no amount of scrubbing could remove it.

Her partner, Taylor, entered the front door hard on her heels and took in the view, grimacing. They exchanged a glance, conveying a myriad of thoughts in that one look. Things like, Why’d we have to catch the hurt ‘bot on a Saturday night?

The place was a real dump, grimy and cluttered, the furniture strictly curbside chic. The kind of place that had you running for a decontamination shower at first opportunity.

“Did someone call an ambulance?” Taylor hollered, while Kylie followed the little blue blood brick road.

What had she done to draw the short straw for this call? Had she forgotten the operator’s birthday? More than likely Taylor had blanked her after a date. That seemed about right.

Taylor stayed close as she navigated the darkened hovel, tapping her thigh to ensure the auto gun was still strapped in its holster. You never knew what to expect when a bot was involved. You had to be ready for anything.

There were whispers about them, stories half covered up. Some went rogue, killing people. There were other rumors, stranger ones, about people becoming obsessed with them, so fixated they stopped eating and never left the house. Who knew, with a hunk of metal covered in pretend human parts?

Kylie cleared the sad excuse for a living room and charged into the tiny hallway.

“Paramedics! Direct us to your location!”

There. Somewhere at the back of the house, a muffled groan.

“Flip you for who goes first?” Taylor gave her a grim smile and pushed past, his gun already in hand.

“It’s the paramedics!” he called through the closed door. “We’re coming in. If you’ve got a weapon, put it on the floor. We’re armed!”

A mumbled “okay” came through the door. Taylor spared Kylie one last glance before he was gone, leaving her alone in the dingy hallway.

After a beat, she followed, scanning the room.

The bot lay on the floor, its illuminated eyes riveted to Kylie as she entered.

If she thought that the front part of the house was filled with blood, this room was drowning in the stuff.

How much can one bot have, anyway?

The only sound in the room was the low keening of the disheveled human who held the bot’s head in his lap. This looked like a bedroom—or at least a place where someone slept. A dirty mattress was stuffed into a corner, rumpled and discolored sheets piled on top. Kylie wrinkled her nose at the mix of engine oil and human sweat.

The bot was a mess, its insides now on the outside. Kylie knew straight away it was a goner. Paramedics carried a liter of bot juice, but that was all. It would hardly be a drop in the ocean here.

“I’ll take the dude; you deal with the bot.” Taylor had obviously come to the same conclusion as Kylie, and he separated the two to get the story before he called the cops.

Taylor led the man from the room. The keening continuing, his steps heavy as they faded down the hallway.

Kylie had never been alone with a bot; they gave her the creeps. It looked a damn sight different from when she had seen them on the news growing up. It was no longer a mercenary soldier crushing people indiscriminately under its metal boots, dodging bullets, on a mission to destroy. Now it was a deflated balloon on a filthy floor, pathetic in its uselessness. It was hard to reconcile this thing with what had struck terror into the human race in the World Wars of the 21^st century. Kylie had read somewhere that they were reprogrammed to protect people when the war ended. Now they were free to integrate among regular folk, some of them getting ordinary jobs and even buying houses in nice neighborhoods.

Kylie took a deep breath and followed procedure, flicking on her gloves and pressing a roll of gauze into the bot’s wound to slow the hemorrhage.

“Can you tell me your name?”

The bot’s mouth opened and closed. Only a rusty creak escaped.

“Who did this to you?”

The bot’s eyes rolled listlessly, but it said nothing.

Kylie applied more gauze. The blood continued its sluggish seeping, and somewhere deep inside she heard a gear grind to a halt. The light dimmed in the bot’s eyes and it used its last bit of fuel to roll toward her. Kylie jumped back and pulled her autogun from the holster, but by the time she had it pointed in the right direction, the bot had sunk back to the floor. The blood slowed to a trickle.

The bot pushed something into her hand. Kylie registered the blue-stained serrated blade before realizing she held the murder weapon.

The bot had lain on it to hide it, and used its last bit of energy to recover it for her.

“You did this to yourself, didn’t you?”

The bot’s eyes flickered in assent.

“Why?”

The bot’s head inclined toward the door Taylor and the other man had left through.

“He loves you?”

Again, the flicker of lights.

Its programming. It’s protecting the human—no matter the cost.

Kylie nodded and took the bot’s hand. Tears stung the corners of her eyes and she swallowed. She hated this part. It didn’t matter that it was a robot. It was her patient. Kylie didn’t like to lose a single one.

“It’s okay,” she told it. “I’m here.”

Kylie stayed with the bot as the light in its eyes slowly faded and the final gear came to a stop.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Dunn lives in Perth, Western Australia. She has been an educator for fifteen years and gets paid to teach W.A.’s most notorious criminals how to read and write. Her writing credits include a host of short film scripts and some short mystery stories about her hometown. Kate spends her free time baking elaborate cakes and hiking bush trails with her two children.