The Little Robot Who Waited (Part III)
A boy and dog story with a sci-fi twist
Welcome to Macy Sees The World where I share short fiction inspired by my travels from around the world! This is Part III of our latest sci-fi series. If you haven’t already, I recommend catching up on Part I and II before diving into today’s post.
The Little Robot Who Waited (Part I)
The Little Robot Who Waited (Part II)
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The little robot limped around a heap of stone blocks, their grainy surface charred and smoking. A suffocating haze tainted the air and everything it touched, from the deformed scraps of metal that littered the streets to the flecks of ash that drifted onto Charlie’s optics. As he arrived at the street corner where the research capsule once stood, proud and taut—an emblem of progress in an unforgiving hellscape—the orange tint intensified into a violent crimson that gave Charlie pause. Looking up, he realized that sunset had arrived at last.
His solar cells strained to absorb the sun’s final breath while his internal timekeeper clicked. It’s been an hour since The Sterling had shot off towards the stars. Traveling at light speed, the ship would be hundreds of millions of miles away by now, likely entering the first ring of the Asteroid Belt—a wink of dust adrift in a sea of iron fists.
The earliest The Pandora mothership might commission another research expedition would be five years from now. However, based on probability analysis, Charlie doubted it would happen so soon. As far as the little robot’s knowledge of human politics extended, such a commission required a majority vote from both the Pontpublic Counsel and the Governty Chamber. The last time the two ruling bodies greenlighted an expedition had been two decades ago but not without extensive pressure from the research cooperatives.
Charlie lowered his gaze. His core directive instructed him to stay operational and wait for Lucas’ return. The boy’s final words had sealed his fate.
I’ll come back for you, Charlie! I promise.
He would wait until his joints fused with age, until the last skyscraper had been humbled into a heap of dust, until the heavens and earth crumbled, and still, he would wait. Because that’s what his master told him to do. Because his programming would not allow him to lose faith even in the face of irrationality. Because the boy gave him purpose in a desolate and purposeless world.
As a cloud eclipsed the last of the day’s light, something small and wet plunked Charlie’s head. Then another. And another. His optic flickered as he peered into the sky. For a second, he wondered whether his vision had finally failed for what he saw, he could not believe. The stars appeared to be melting, cascading toward the ground as flashing white needles. A soft pattering filled the air, swelling steadily into a roar. Veins of purple split the sky followed by a deafening boom that reverberated through Charlie’s every bolt and screw.
His neural network flared as he scoured his Universal Data Library for the right term.
/Lightning - The occurrence of a natural electrical discharge of very short duration and high voltage between a cloud and the ground or within a cloud, accompanied by a bright flash and typically also thunder.
Having lived most of his life aboard the sterile environment of The Pandora mothership, the rain was as alien to him as sunsets, fires, and clouds.
He checked his protocol manual and then scanned the remains of the research capsule for a suitable shelter. An overturned, plastic bin rolled gently in the breeze by the charred remains of a lab table, the words “Sterling Research Cooperative” flashing at him with peeling letters. He limped over, eased himself between his plastic blanket and entered sleep mode to wait out the night.
The little robot stirred at the sound of buzzing. Something soft fluttered onto his chest, where it wriggled about with restless fervor. His sensors detected legs…antennae…
As his optic flickered to life, the creature sprang into the air followed by that familiar buzzing. Limping out of the plastic bin, he tracked its flight as it soared above his head, looped around a set of scorched table legs, and then landed ever so gingerly on a dandelion peeking out from between the fingers of a melted lab glove.
The flower quivered as the bee nestled itself between its petals, searching. Its stalk bent at a severe angle and its head drooped in defeat, but something about the bee’s eager movements suggested that despite last night’s inferno, despite the pounds of ash still suffocating the atmosphere, the dandelion—like Charlie—still clung to life.
The bee emerged, its antennae tickling the air. Charlie’s optics narrowed in on its furry body and began recording. Pollen dusted its legs and underbelly. A pearl of light gleamed in its eyes, intelligent, knowing. Suddenly, its wings blurred and it disappeared from Charlie’s view. He zoomed out and, following its buzzing, found it dancing above a tangle of wires that had once powered the research capsule.
Charlie saved the recording to his main drive and limped after the creature. As a research bot, building the Universal Data Library had been his primary directive before he’d been assigned to serve Lucas. But the boy’s archaeological ambitions meant Charlie’s day-to-day duties in retirement differed marginally from his duties in commission. Recording ants snipping apart roaches and taking pictures of the detritus that clogged gutters had been among his foremost duties. What better way to serve Lucas than continuing his data collection, he reasoned.
For the rest of the day, he stalked the bee, recording its flight patterns and taking close-ups of the tiny tube that flicked in and out of its mouth. He lost track of the bee several times, but always managed to relocate it by that distinctive buzz.
With its legs engorged with golden puffs, the bee wound its way down a street Charlie had never ventured before. It bobbed over the piles of brick and mosaics of broken glass in blissful oblivion while Charlie followed behind, weaving cautiously around the rubble so as not to damage his treads any further.
Here, the buildings stood at a stout height, no more than four or five stories tall. Most bore open wounds up and down their sides, admitting just enough sunlight to display a sketch of rafters and rusted stairwells within. Some could hardly be called buildings, their roofs supported more by air than brick. A sheen of bone-white dust tinted their facade while splotches of red and black, the shade of dried blood, patterned the undereye of shattered windows.
Something clinked under Charlie as he attempted to roll over a clump of wilted grass. When he looked back, he detected a glint of bronze.
/Bullet — A metal projectile, typically cylindrical and pointed, used as ammunition in Pre-Collapse firearms. Purpose: To kill, to incapacitate, to damage. Status: Obsolete as of 2356 AD.
The bee disappeared into the shadows of a building with the words “Home Sweet Home” plastered in curly font on its opened door. Apart from a gaping wound in its side, this building appeared structurally sound. Charlie clambered in after the bee, following it buzzing into a narrow hallway with strips of floral paper peeling off its walls.
He paused outside a room with an overturned sofa and a crystal chandelier dangling by a few wires from the ceiling. Here the buzzing rose to a crescendo as a thousand bees darted to and fro. He marveled at this cloud of primeval chaos that had neither beginning nor end, neither meaning nor unmeaning, only noise, only life. After recording this spectacle, he concentrated his gaze on the back corner, where the buzzing seemed loudest.
There, crowned with a halo of light and draped in a rich coat of dust, leaned a slim, sharp-nosed instrument. Its tip pierced the ground. A set of fins protruded from its tail end.
/Missile — A 21st-century weapon that is self-propelled or directed by remote control, carrying conventional or nuclear explosives. Status: Obsolete as of 2356 AD.
But the missile did not grip Charlie’s attention for long, for there, between the fins and the splintered ceiling beams grew three immense stalactites of humming, dancing bees. He pushed forward, careful not to disturb the ones rollicking through the air.
When he arrived beneath the hive, he tilted his head up and magnified his view. Between the slivers of space that occasionally formed as the bees jostled each other, glowed a warm, amber gel. His sensors detected a sweet scent he had never encountered before.
/Honey — A sticky yellowish-brown fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers; Eaten by Pre-Collapse humans as sweet food. Status: Natural renditions of the substance are obsolete as of 2356 AD.
His neural network sparked. Bees are collectors, he recalled. No, more than collectors, they’re creators. Artists to an extent. Chefs. Maestros. They transform raw ingredients into something delightful, something universally appreciated by humans throughout generations and across civilizations. Music resonates through every fiber of their being. And like the dandelion, they were survivors too. More than survivors, he realized upon analyzing the structural integrity of their hive. Conquerors. Masters of rebirth and regeneration. Beacons of hope. Tens of thousands of them.
From that day forward, the little robot made his home among the bees. During the day, he’d record them dancing and singing. On some occasions, he’d try to join in, spinning his dented body in a lopsided circle and wheezing a staticky tune to harmonize with their buzzing. He continued following them on their foraging trips, studying which flowers they preferred over others and hypothesizing the process by which they converted those golden puffs into honey. Day by day, his Universal Data Library steadily expanded with the research he collected.
During his first day among the bees, he’d pushed aside a pile of broken boards beneath the hive and discovered an alcove lined with shelves upon shelves of papery blocks. Activating his Grav field, he’d gingerly removed one from the wall and opened its musty cover for a closer examination. A field of tiny letters stamped across yellowed pages greeted him.
/Book — A written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers; Used by Pre-Collapse humans to store, share, and preserve knowledge; A cumbersome equivalent to the Neurapath Chip used by most contemporary societies today.
On scanning the words, he found them familiar yet archaic. “Locumotive”, for example, appeared twice on one page. “Yacht”, “Diesel”, and “Leather” were a few other terms that marked the book as an artifact of a bygone age. Charlie closed the book with care and set it beside him. It seemed a shame that these treasures should remain idle in the wall, especially considering how intact they seemed compared to everything else in the house. The bees had transformed the dead missile into a haven perhaps he can do the same with these books.
With methodical tenacity, the little robot began to stack one book on top of another. He finished by the time the moon arched halfway across the sky. Tucked between the base of the missile and the wall, stood a shelter with four walls, a roof, and an entrance comfortably large enough for Charlie to roll into.
Before he tried it out for size, he plucked the sign from the front door and hauled it into the bee room. Picking up a rusted nail, he tacked the words “Home Sweet Home” on the wall above his shelter. But no matter how he tried to adjust it, the sign refused to straighten, always canting at an angle. He gave up after the fourth try.
As he prepared to enter sleep mode, he peered out the window across from him and set his gaze on the stars. Somewhere out there, amidst the thousands of glittering celestials drifted the most important boy in the world—his boy. He pulled up a recording he had taken some weeks ago when they had first landed on Earth.
The grown-ups are thinking of sending another exploration team to New Rome. You know, that planet Dad’s friend discovered? But nothing’s going to come out of it, I’m sure. Just like nothing came out of New Georgia, New Venus, or New Atlantis. You know what I think, Charlie? I think our best hope is Old Earth. The forests are coming back, they say…
The temperature began to slide precipitously after day fifty-six. Charlie’s in-built climate control kept the frost from damaging his systems, but the bees were not so fortunate. Soon, tiny corpses began littering the hallways and rooms. Studying them with magnified vision, he found the dead ones were almost always male. He developed a ritual of sweeping them into a pile by his shelter each evening. Perhaps Lucas would appreciate the chance to study their anatomy, he reasoned. The boy did have a penchant for broken things.
It was around this time that the little robot’s scientific exploits began expanding into new realms. He still recorded the bees at dawn, but afterward, rather than stalk them as they foraged, he’d venture into the inner city alone. Here, beneath the stoic gaze of skeletal towers, he did what Lucas never got the chance to do.
The boy had wished to explore the inside of the towers; however, his parents had adamantly refused to give in to his pleas, citing his young age and the tower’s haphazard conditions as reasons for their ultimatum. But they had never forbade Charlie from entering them. Not explicitly at least.
The first tower he explored appeared to be some sort of sanctuary for a troupe of naked mannequins. He scanned their blank, peeling faces, like those of disease victims he’d glimpsed aboard The Pandora mothership, then promptly tore one of their heads off and tossed it into the rucksack he’d borrowed from the bee house.
His adventure in the next tower proved a tad more eventful. As he rolled through the double door entrance, his treads snagged on a thin, nearly invisible wire. A whistling sound split the air. Something glinted off the far wall. Charlie swiveled to the side, ducking his head just as a sharp projectile scraped his torso. Half a second later, an explosion shook the earth.
Fire engulfed the streets. Concrete and metal scraps flew in every which direction. The doorframe shielded Charlie from the worst of the explosion, but a stray shard of glass slammed into the side of his head. Spidery cracks bloomed across his optic’s glass film, splintering his vision. When he reoriented himself, he looked out at a world that was literally, irrevocably broken.
He recalled Lucas’ words from their first night on Earth.
Pa says that in the final days before the Collapse, people turned savage. A brain-killing disease of some sort polluted the air. Pa thinks it must have been lab-grown, meant to be used as a weapon of war, but it got out of hand. Chaos exploded. The people did everything they could to stop it from spreading. Quarantine. Religious sacrifices. Genocide.
Pa says he’s only telling me this since I’m here with them on this trip. But no one else can know. The Pontpublic Counsel and Governty Chamber don’t want people to find out the real reason why our ancestors left Earth. Some things are best forgotten. That’s how Pa put it. You must not tell anyone either, Charlie. Promise me that. Ma and Pa are going to ground me till I’m thirty if they knew I breathed a word. Even to you.
While Charlie’s Universal Library contained an ocean of disconnected Pre-Collapse images and vocabulary, he knew little of the specifics that caused the event or the timeline of how everything unfolded. Like all artificial and organic lifeforms on The Pandora, he only knew the story of how it resolved: Facing a rapidly deteriorating environment, the last humans mustered their collective courage and decided to bet their future on the stars. The rest was history.
Lucas hypothesized that the Counsel and Chamber kept the disease secret from the rest of The Pandora because they didn’t want to dampen people’s hope of returning to Earth. Although previous research expeditions and drone analyses had failed to find traces of the disease for over half a century now, the ruling bodies remained wary.
They’re looking for something, Charlie. A sign. A miracle. Ma and Pa didn’t say, but I think the Pandora will be ready to return to Earth once we find it. What do you think it could be?
Charlie scrutinized the shard that had damaged his optic and the wire blowing loosely in the wind. The trap was clearly meant to kill more than one person. Perhaps whoever set it up had expected to be swarmed by a mob. If remnants of a deadlier age still lurked in the shadows of every street, survival might not be as simple as he had anticipated.
He recalled the conversation he’d overheard while trapped in the inferno a few months ago.
I told you not to mess with those wires!
I’m sorry, I—
Slauson and Kade are dead because of you!
Could that fire have also been caused by someone accidentally setting off a trap like this one?
Charlie pictured an emaciated man with eyes mad with terror, cowering by the door, hands fumbling with some explosives he’d pilfered and a reel of transparent wire. He was dressed in Pre-Collapse clothing—cotton pants and a polyester shirt with violent gashes down its back. There’s howling in the distance, not that of humans but of rabid animals. Shadows elongate around the street corner. Gunshots ring. He finishes tying the wire then darts inside.
As Charlie peered into the belly of the building, he wondered if the man’s remains were buried somewhere within, a rifle clutched in one hand and the arm of his child or his spouse or his mother clutched in the other.
Hauling his rucksack behind him, the little robot limped into the streets where the fires were just beginning to calm. He’ll have to proceed with greater caution if he’s to see Lucas again in one piece.
Up Next…
The Little Robot Who Waited (Part IV)
By the time the temperature began ticking back up and the bees resumed their honeymaking with vigor, the little robot was in worse shape than ever before. Whereas it had once taken him half an hour to cover a distance of two miles, now it took him nearly an hour, and that was only if he exerted himself to the maximum. The bolts connecting his treads to his torso regularly required tightening and his neck joints would no longer rotate properly, leaving his head stuck in a forward-facing position most of the time...
Discussion Questions 💬
If you could give Charlie some words of encouragement right now, what would you say?
If you could have one superpower to help you survive an apocalypse, what would you choose?
What do you think is the sign/miracle that The Pandora government is looking for? Shoot your best guess!
The list of extinct things that aren't seems like a sign. Of course collapse could just mean human collapse. The comment that "the forests may be coming back" made me assume that post collapse meant post nuclear holocaust. But, there most probably would not be buildings standing in such a case, so this engineered bio-weapon probably attacked humans. It would have been tested, probably on other life, so, for the sake of discussion, if tested on pigs, then a roving band of sanely functioning pigs could be the sign.
Another great installment Macy. I am excited to see where it goes.