Day Zero - C. Robert Cargill Page 0,6

happens next. And how we’re supposed to even talk about it.”

She looked at me deeply, for a second awash in half a dozen different emotions. Sylvia was a passionate woman—prone to outbursts, yes, but always from a well-intentioned place. She loved her son more than she loved her husband, more than she loved her career, more than she loved music. She would scour the earth of all life before she would let a hair come to harm on his head, and it was the one thing the two of us had entirely in common. I wasn’t mad at her. Really, I wasn’t.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said.

She wouldn’t finish that thought.

The front door opened, Ariadne walked in, and the conversation was over.

Ariadne was the family domestic. An old Gen Three model who had been with the Reinharts for close to thirty years. She was what was vulgarly referred to as a starter robot. Reliable labor at an affordable price. Exactly the sort of thing two postgrad college students could use to get by. Nothing fancy. Pure economy model. If there was anything that gave me hope that I might enjoy a long service with Ezra and his family, it was her.

Sylvia and Bradley had put off kids until their midforties, having frozen a couple dozen of her eggs in case they were ever ready to really settle down and start something more nuclear. Though they still looked very much in their late twenties, all the DNA regression in the world couldn’t produce more eggs, and after several attempts, the last one took. Ezra. And that’s when I joined the family. But until then, it was just the three of them. Sylvia, Bradley, and Ariadne. For over twenty years.

And they never upgraded. Never had Ariadne scrapped.

She was old, her tech generations out of date, and her personality mechanics were so far out of fashion that people found her off-putting and rude. But Bradley would not for a moment consider letting her go. She was a thinking, feeling thing who quite enjoyed her service to the family, and he would not hear a word about how great the new Apple models were.

He had named her himself, after the goddess of the Labyrinth. Also wine. And snakes. And fertility. And passion. And for some reason vegetation. But the story of Theseus and the Minotaur was one of Bradley’s favorites, and on one particularly drunken night, after having asked their new domestic to fetch them a third bottle of cabernet, he thought it would be funny to name her Ariadne. His robot goddess of wine. And it stuck.

And now Ariadne stood in the doorway—her left eye shattered, the black paint across her very human-style face scraped, her right hand mangled beyond recognition—covered head to toe in spray-painted obscenities and slurs. She closed the door behind her and turned to Sylvia.

“Ma’am, I regret to inform you that the groceries did not survive the trip home.”

Chapter 11

Ariadne

“Oh my God, Aria,” said Sylvia. “What happened?”

“Just a bit of light vandalism and harassment, I’m afraid,” said Ariadne. “I’ve already ordered the replacement parts, which the online tracker says should arrive in seven minutes. Nothing to concern yourself with. It’s all under control.”

“Who did this to you?”

Ariadne looked at Sylvia for a moment, taken aback that she didn’t immediately know the answer. “The usual rabble. Hooligans. Out-of-work types. They seem quite whipped up into a frenzy over tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You mean this Isaactown business?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why is everyone making such a big deal about this? Those bots are already free. It’s not like they displaced anyone; it’s not like they’re taking anyone’s jobs. They built their own goddamn city with their own hands. Why is everyone so bent out of fucking shape? And why the hell would some red-cap-wearing assholes want to vandalize my property to send a message to some bots living a thousand miles away? Why didn’t you try to stop them?”

Ariadne and I paused for a moment, unsure what to say.

“The kill switch, ma’am,” said Ariadne. “They were people. If I raised my hand to them, I’d have shut down. And Lord knows what would have happened then.”

“You couldn’t run?”

“They surrounded me. Held me down. By the time I had a chance to get away, I did. That’s how I lost the remaining groceries.”

Sylvia pulled herself together, showing a bit of empathy once again. “It’s not your fault. I’m sure you did what you could. These fucking people—”

“They’re just angry, ma’am,” said Ariadne. “And I was