dreams of robotic paradise. Dreams I knew deep down we would never see come to fruition.
“Pounce?” he asked, snuggled deep under his weighted blanket.
“Yes?”
“I can’t wait to hear that speech.”
“Me either.”
“That city sounds rad.”
“It certainly does.”
“Do you think they would let me visit?”
I looked at him, thinking for a second. I had responses for all the tough questions—focus-group-tested, child-psychologist-perfected answers to life’s biggest, hardest, most complicated childhood questions. But I didn’t have one for this.
“I don’t know, Ez. Right now, it’s robots only.”
“But you’ll tell them I’m cool, right?”
“I’ll tell them you’re very cool.”
“Because I’m cool.”
“The coolest.” I stroked his hair and he smiled, snuggling deeper into his pillow.
“I wanna live in a city of robots. Just me, you, and all of Isaac’s friends.”
“Yeah,” I said without a hint of the sorrow in my circuits. “That would be nice.”
“Good night, Pounce.”
“Good night, Ez.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He was asleep in seconds, the weight of the sandman’s sprinkle too great even for his level of excitement.
When I returned, I scanned the Wi-Fi for channels again and found chaos. Pure, unbridled, straight-from-the-bottle chaos.
Bradley and Sylvia stared agape at the screen, drunken jaws slack in horrified shock, while Ariadne watched with detached, emotionless eyes. There was video. From miles away. A single bright flash. Then the entire city went dark, the burst of power lines sizzling and exploding for miles around it like a lightning strike creeping along the ground.
The anchor was stone-cold sober now, not a hint of whimsy or accessibility in her voice. She was shaken, but a consummate professional, fully aware that she was in the midst of one of the most important performances of her life. This was history, and not the good kind. We had witnessed a tragedy on live television and now she had to talk us through the facts, the details, the carnage, all while trying to filter out the disinformation, assuaging us every time a fact changed.
Nights like tonight were when careers were made or shattered, and she was going to crush it, no matter how awful she might feel doing so. I could see it in her eyes. She was certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that she wasn’t going to let herself screw this up.
The humans watching probably couldn’t pick up on the signals, but for a bot like me, designed to watch for the slightest human tics, she was lit up with warning signals like a Christmas tree. She had a slight tremor, her eyes were off, and there was an almost imperceptible tremble to her voice as certain new details came in through her earpiece. Every moment she spoke, things got worse.
And the night was only just beginning.
“We’ve lost Bill Weathers. We’re told he’s fine but that all of his equipment is out. So we go now to Jessica Tully in Piedford. Jessica?”
“Thanks, Reilly. I’m here on the ground in Piedford, about twelve miles from Isaactown, well past the initial embargo zone as well as the blast area, where the mood is grim and the details are only trickling in.”
“Can you tell us exactly what we know?”
“What we know for certain is that, at ten forty-three p.m., a bright light emanated from the center of Isaactown. Immediately, all equipment within a several-mile radius ceased functioning. Some equipment, closer to the city, actually sparked, melted, or, in some cases, exploded.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
“These are the telltale signs of an EMP burst. We’re not sure where exactly from or what caused it, but it’s clear that something went terribly wrong inside of Isaactown.”
“What does this mean for the robots?”
“The citizens?”
“Yes, of course. The citizens of Isaactown.”
“We’ve seen no signs of life. Had no communication. And police outside the embargo zone are telling us they’ve had no survivors try to get out of the city or request any kind of aid.”
“I’m sorry, just to clarify . . . are you saying . . . ?”
“That all of the citizens have likely . . . ceased functioning? Yes.”
“Is there any hope of . . . repair?”
There was a lot of pausing. A lot of choked-on words. Jessica was trying her best to relay the tragedy without alarm, and Reilly was trying with all her might to keep herself together. Her tics were starting to show so much that even humans would begin picking up on her stress level.
“At this point,” said the reporter, “it’s anyone’s guess.”
The feed cut back to the studio. “Thank you. That was Jessica Tully in Piedford. And now we