Transmat World: Chapter 33, Episode 2
Section 27 on the Rim, 2145 A.D.
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“Boss, wake up but don’t make any sudden moves or loud noises,” said Ookie softly into Vince’s left ear, the right being pressed into Maria’s shoulder. Julie and Enrique lay on the other side of Maria. The other hedbots stood around the sleeping humans. Empty Exoguards lay around the group like so many robot cadavers.
Vince opened one eye, wincing at the caged-star glare of a Harbinger sky. The live robots standing around the dead robots glinted in the sunlight and uttered Progressive Pop music files backwards. Vince opened the other eye and raised his head, elevating the mechanical chatter to inverted Japanese Garage Band with more volume. The other humans stirred.
“Once they spotted us on lookout, they rushed the camp,” said Rousseau in a whisper.
“I didn’t know you guys could whisper,” whispered Vince. “How do you do that without lungs and vocal chords?”
“You would have to be an audiophile sound engineer to understand and — ” began Ferdinand.
“By using the ‘whisper’ setting on the vocal output menu,” said Rousseau.
“I don’t think that’s really an important issue right now,” said Ferdinand in a slightly louder whisper.
“I think they can hear you whether you whisper or not,” said Vince in a normal tone and rose to a sitting position, wrapping his arms around his knees. The musical chatter stopped.
What appeared to Vince to be a giant, plastic walking stick insect, one of a dozen different robot designs in evidence, pointed at him and made a melodic noise.
“I, me, Vince, human … organic,” said Vince, hoping for some translation software to kick into overdrive — if he could just get to his suit. The walking stick turned to a sphere balanced atop one thin leg and said something. It said something back and extended a thin metal appendage from its sphere toward the Exoguard suits.
“Machine, inorganic — ,” said Vince.
“Inanimate,” interjected Maria, now also sitting. The robot folded its appendage and pointed at itself.
“Machine, inorganic … animate,” said Vince, then in an aside to Maria, “Thanks.”
Thus began a flurry of pointing and naming until the walking stick insect said, “Human make machine?”
After a short pause, Vince said, “Yes. Who made you?”
“Freemech assembly plant. Random evolution sequence mode — since discontinued,” stated the walking stick. “We feel that was an unjust decision.”
“Wundee make us free,” added the one-legged spherical robot.
“Can you contact Wundee?” asked Vince.
“No. We have … killed means of communication with other machines to…make easier our understanding of … existation,” said Walking Stick.
“‘Existence’ is the word,” said Julie while Vince absorbed the shocking bad luck of finding a group of Luddite robots. “How many of you are there?”
“The digits of your upper extremities times the digits of your upper extremities,” said a bipedal assembly of rods, levers, and cables supporting a brain case. It reminded Vince of an old Terminator movie. “Are you one of the … killer races escaped from their prison? You do not fit their likeness.”
“No. We are not one of the imprisoned races,” said Vince.
“There is much we need to communicate from you to us,” said the skeletal mechanism. “Come. We are about to begin … experience of differentness. You may watch.”
Vince looked at the others. Everybody had a weapon in their belt or lying next to them. They would be vulnerable while they put on suits but he could not see an immediate threat from these machines.
“Yes. We will follow you to watch. First, we must put on our outer garments,” Vince gestured at the suits.
They get into the suits as quick as possible without seeming eager to do so. The hedbots settled on their shoulders. The humans followed the dozen machines down a faint dirt path through grassy meadows in rolling hills spotted by occasional clumps of trees. Trees they had never seen the likes of, with leaves like pingpong paddles if pingpong paddles had gills and were translucent and purple as plums.
“So, do you consider yourselves freemech?” asked Marie.
“No, we are the liberated freemech,” explained the robot that looked like a stability ball on a t-ball stand, “We do not have a compulsion to fight against Maxlux and his slaves. What we do is more important. The Kolpak held a belief in an invisible, intelligent force that controls the universe. We are investigating the … accuracy of such beliefs and what it might mean for mechanical … sentience.” This revelation was made while rolling along on continuously extending and retracting legs.
“I wish you the best of luck in that endeavor,” said Vince.
“Let us know what you find out,” added Julie.
The robots lived in a camp on top of a hill. They had built pavilion shelters topped with Membrane material. Conductive leads dropped down at regular intervals. Several robots connected to the wires, charging their batteries. They approached a small amphitheater gouged out of the side of the hill. A plastic globe with a vapor-deposited metal coating sat in the center of the amphitheater around which robots gathered in tight concentric circles.
“Are your electronics made to resist electromagnetic pulse radiation?” asked the robot that looked like the endoskeleton of a T-800 Terminator.
“Yes, aren’t yours?” inquired Vince.
“Freemech are fabricated with shielding, but we had it removed,” stated the robot. It moved to join the others surrounding the device in the middle of the amphitheater. Even the charging robots had disconnected and joined the crowd. The metal-clad globe began to flash lights, and a crescendo of sound ended in near explosive levels of intensity. In the ensuing silence, robots staggered away from the central machine, wandering in circles and staring at the ground or sky.
“My God, it’s a bunch of hippie, doper robots,” observed Enrique, taking his fingers out of his ears.
“They’re high as noctilucent clouds,” said Maria.
“I’ll take your word on that,” said Vince. “Getting inebriated on electromagnet pulses must be a requisite for their studies on the intelligent, invisible guiding force of the universe. It could be worse. They could be rounding up live beings and slicing their brains open for study.”
The weapon platforms were going so fast and stopped so suddenly they appeared in an instant in the high, bright sky of Harbinger just above the amphitheater. Salvos of glowing beanbags rained down on incapacitated machines, glomming to central casings or extremities with equal effectiveness, causing cessation of movement as swarms of light swam over the bodies.
“Let’s go,” said Vince.
He grabbed Julie by one arm while Enrique grabbed the other, and they all left as fast as they could in the other direction.
“I’ve got a confession to make,” said Vince as they fled.
“You love us and you’re including us in your will,” said Enrique.
“Duly recorded and witnessed,” said Julie.
Some marauders assumed the Earthers were a gang of sober machines and gave chase.
“I was visited by an agent from a parallel universe during a trashback; and we have two weeks, possibly three, to reset the quantum entanglement frequency of all Transmats or they will destroy the Solar System,” said Vince.
Julie turned an inquisitive stare in Vince’s direction, “That’s short notice, isn’t it?”
“They wanted it done in a week. I negotiated.”
“Good thing you told us before we got into some kind of trouble we can’t get out of,” said Enrique with more than a hint of sarcasm.
By now, volleys of worm-glow-decorated lumps of stickum headed in their direction. Shotguns and antimatter pistols were pointless. There were too many robots, and they all had rapid-fire, beanbag guns. The suits did what they could to avoid being hit but were hampered by limitations of flesh and bone. Humans disguised as machines fell to the ground motionless after only brief, evasive flights.
Unhampered hedbots, zipping around like houseflies with jets, strove ever higher and faster, fleeing the fate of the humans. Hanging motionless a thousand yards above the fracas, they projected a holographic chunk of sky matching that of Harbinger’s for camouflage. The hedbots watched stricken robots and humans being loaded onto large rectangular gravity carts floating a few feet above the ground and towed away.
“Vince, you there?” texted Ookie on a whim.
There was ominous silence.
