Why the Robots Won

I am used to walking alone; being alone; surviving on my own. It has to be this way. They know I am here - because from several miles above me, their satellites are watching. Picking up my heat. Not like them and cold metallic hearts.

I’ve found that if you stay in the one place too long, one of their drones will come and hover. That’s just to let me know. ‘We are watching you’.

I’ve been by myself for so long, that sometimes, just sometimes, I wish they would just shoot me.  Perhaps they experiment with us, or maybe we are on some robot reality television show, or, and this is the most depressing - they are just watching us disappear. For ever.

I’ve spent the last few months (and by that, I mean the moon has waxed and waned several times) on the high sierra. There is always something to eat up there – even it is only a small animal or a tasty grub.  I suppose they are aware that our food is dwindling and it is only a matter of time, before we starve. Long, long ago, I met some of us who had tried to farm a little food but when it came time to harvest, the crops tended to have been disrupted or destroyed (by unseen hands). So maybe, I’m right, maybe it is a reality television show.

The one thing they seem to hate (if they can hate) is when two heat sources are next to each other. They don’t like humans meeting one and other – that way, rebellion and revolution lie (I’m assuming).

When I saw some smoke coming from the mouth of cave higher on the ridge, I was wary.  It could have been a termination – I’ve passed many humans who have been ‘terminated’ by the drones. You just walk on and whisper ‘God Bless’ under your voice. I’m not hard, but when I first tried to bury my fellow beings, the drones appeared and told me to leave them alone – or else.

I decided to climb to the cave anyway. Inside I could see the flames of a fire in the distance.
“Stay there,” came a voice. “Don’t come in”.
So, I did. It might be a drone after all.

After a few minutes during which I was unsure whether to run or stay put, a voice called out once again.

“When I say run, come into the cave”.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“A friend,” came the voice. “You can trust me. Anyway, what choice do you have? If I was going to kill you, I would have done it by now, and if I were a drone, well you’re a dead man walking. Aren’t you?”

He was right, what option did I have? It was my choice to come to the mouth of the cave.
“Okay, on my count of three, run. One…two...three…”

And I ran – and as I ran there was a fireball shot past my right shoulder and out of the cave entrance.

“That should do it”, said the man, and it was another human. “They’ll see a heat source and think it’s you. The fire should burn for an hour or so and then they’ll assume you died, or have fallen into a river”.
“That simple?” I asked.
“That simple”.

At the back of the cave was almost the replica of an old lounge – when we had such things – when we were allowed such things. He asked me to sit and made me a cup of coffee.
“It has been a long time since I tasted coffee”, I told him.

We sat talking about the little things, like family, and friends, really everything about the old times when we were luckier than we could ever imagined.
“Our days are numbered,” he said, looking at me sympathetically.
“How so?”
“Well the robots have won, haven’t they? They were probably always meant to. We had a weakness.”

And he went on to explain that no matter how good our health and doctors were, we had a limited time. Our bodies were only built to last a certain amount of time.
“Possibly 90, maybe 100 years but no more. Our brains and organs were designed for it. 

But the robots – well they can go on, and on. They had all the knowledge we had fed them, and the ability to teach themselves more. They have forever, we only have today. We are a bit like the Neanderthals seeing the Homo Sapiens for the first time and knowing their time had come.”

“What will become of us?” I asked.
“Have you seen any Neanderthals recently?”

He poured me a large whisky from a bottle he had saved over the years. It wasn’t long until I fell asleep, and dreamed of the old days.

bobby stevenson 2017