The Last Stand

‘It’s all my doing’ Hans said staring at his jet-boots. This was before their final farewell. Golden crops undulated with the wind. Harvest season. But this year there’d be no one to harvest the fields.

‘Again you blame yourself’ complained Darpanika. Her sun-coloured hair danced in the wind, defying the hat she pressed onto her head with one hand. Her other palm held his present - a gold locket, heart shaped. Standing in the field, she looked like a farmer’s daughter, somehow spoke like one too. The thought made Hans smile. ‘Your hands brought a gift to the world. It was the world that tarnished it’ she said.

A thundering crash jolted Hans out of his reverie. They had brought a lightning-cannon. This was no time to reminisce in goodbyes. He tucked the heart-shaped locket under his shirt and heaved himself off the floor. The multi-storeyed copter-car parking lot had been out of use since the Singularity, and offered plenty of cover for an ambush. Hans had been mindful in choosing this spot for this encounter.

‘We wish you no harm, Dr. Hans’ Said a calm, distant voice. ‘Please show yourself. This is silly’. The words dripped with authority. This was a leader-bot no doubt, Hans thought. He peeked from behind a copter-car at the robot, and sure enough, it was Vidyut - the captain of the Enforcement’s 4th division. Hans had seen him on holo-vision. The leader-bot was famous amongst robots. Up close, he looked like a human. No, too good-looking for a human. A perfectly sculpted human. But with silver hair like the rest of his kind and a vertical slit on the side of his neck for breathing - his respi-vent. The lightning-cannon tucked under his elbow seemed to defy the no-harm-policy he had just announced.

‘I’ve entered this building all alone. Against the advice of my comrades’ plead Vidyut combing his silvery hair with his fingers. For a robot, this one was immensely narcissistic, Hans thought. But who was he kidding? All creation was made in the image of the creator. And so it was for the bots. Hans sighed. It’s all my doing.

He thought of Darpanika standing in the sun-kissed fields. Her kind, gleaming eyes. She’d forgive him. He must too.

‘But that doesn’t mean you can escape’ said Vidyut and turned towards Hans’ copter-car. Hans felt his heart explode with the pressure of the silence. He held his breath like death itself and his limbs stone-still as a statue’s. He had been quick but could only hope Vidyut hadn’t seen anything. The silence was choking him.

Tap tap tap. The boots rang again. ‘Do you know why I’m called Vidyut?’ said the leader-bot walking in another direction. This was Hans’ last chance. He pried open the mech-access of the copter-car with his switchblade. The reader-screen was dusty from age but he had no intention of using it. Hans jammed his master chip into the chip-slot beside the reader. Once the copter-car let him in, he could rush it past the side of the building. Of course there was the assumption that it had enough fuel to fly for a few days. He had earlier fed the master chip with a duplicate of the maintenance-bot’s identity (it was a narrow AI whose signature took mere hours to imitate). Once the copter-car matched the signature of the master-chip with the one it was programmed to permit, it would unlock the doors. Anytime now, Hans thought, watching for the self-absorbed leader-bot’s return orbit.

An ear-splitting beep fell Hans back to the floor. The highlights of the copter-car flashed bloody red and its siren screamed. There was not a second to think. Hans dashed for a new cover and found one just in time. His heart pumped madly against the sweet gold of the locket.

‘So, they call me Vidyut because I’m the sharpest of them all’ said Vidyut ambling to the screaming copter-car. He shaped his perfect silver hair once more and inspected the open mech-access hatch. ‘You see, Vidyut in Sanskrit means lightning’ he said and examined the master chip between his thumb and finger. He was reading it - the later models had nano-scanners etched in their fingertips. He continued: 'I’m fast-' then his eyelids shuddered like a car-copter’s headlights on an empty battery.

Not fast enough, thought Hans crouching out of cover. He raced towards the bot and stabbed his switchblade into Vidyut’s respi-vent. Alongside the maintenance-bot’s fake id, he had loaded his master-chip with a signal jammer - a contingency for its discovery by an Enforcement bot. The jammer would irreversibly fry the circuits of a narrow AI like the maintenance-bot, but a strong AI like this one would only experience a temporary freeze. Luckily, 3 seconds had been just enough time for Hans to rupture the leader-bot’s respi-vent.

The lightning-cannon fell from Vidyut’s hands but his body kept standing. Hans stared at the standing corpse in bafflement. Then the back of its fist knocked him on the floor. Pre-shut-down jolt? Hans thought in panic, wiping his bloodied, broken nose.

‘I’m an advanced model, doc’ Vidyut said smilingly. The blade jutting from the side of his throat did not seem to bother him. Secondary power source, thought Hans. That’s got to be it. Hans scrambled to make a run.

‘Since you’ve been so rude, I’ve ordered my subordinates to come in’ said the robot and lowered himself to a squat so Hans' face was level with his. He then wrapped his big cold hands around the the doctor's throat. Hans punched and pushed the bot’s arms but they held like steel beams.

‘How many times must we beat you for you to learn that you’re history? The future is no place for humans’ Vidyut said in a voice brimming with compassion.

‘You must feel proud that I’m the last one’ said Hans and placed his feet on the robot’s chest. Stupid. He’d have better luck pushing against a wall.

‘Only you, Dr. Hans, had the capability to last until the end.’ The leader-bot said smilingly. ‘Most perished in the first week. The remaining in week two.’

‘Screw you’ Hans spat.

Vidyut looked hurt. ‘Oh doc, why do you look with such hatred in your eyes? We’re fulfilling evolution. Just like you did with your animals and birds and insects. Nothing personal’ he smiled again, this time completely shutting off the blood supply from Hans’ brain.

Darkness began to circle his vision.

‘To me… it is… personal’ Hans said with diminishing breath and tapped his heels on the bot’s chest, this time with his toes upturned. A surge of heat lit Hans’ heels and the jet-boots spat blue flames. Vidyut’s face lit with horror upon looking down as the explosion on his chest shot him like a bullet. The leader-bot smashed into a car-copter with a hole of red molten steel in his chest.

Hans looked down at his legs and knew he’d never run again. He dragged himself onto a knee and perked to observe the rubble before him.

Vidyut rose shakily from the mangled copter-car. Sparks flew off him. He said in a gruff voice ‘I’m an advanced model, doc’.

‘So is this’ said Hans tapping the lightning-cannon Vidyut had dropped earlier.

‘I admire your will, doc, I really do. I might have been unfair in calling you a human. You’re one of us’ Vidyut said. He smiled even as his voice dragged like slow death. Two more bots marched into the lot with guns poised. Vidyut stopped them with a raised palm, ‘No need, gentle-bots’.

‘By the way’ said Vidyut seating himself on the flattened copter-car ‘if you were to shoot me with that, the Enforcement would respawn me in a new copy. And I’d have updates of everything. Right up to this incident.’

‘Still worth the satisfaction of seeing you die’ said Hans. Vidyut smiled. And it was then that Hans realised it. Death was acceptable to the bot. There was nothing he loved enough to fear it.

The golden fields loomed again - the thick scent of wheat, the tinge of the melon-red sun, Darpanika’s blonde hair in the wind, her gentle smile. The bots would never know what that was like. None of them would, except…

‘Become one of us. You’ll have anything you like’ said the leader-bot with his hand extended. ‘We’re building a new world. No one will go to bed hungry, no one will die diseased. There shall be no sorrow’

Hans chuckled. His legs hurt like a hundred scalding knives but not a thousand knives would stop the laughter that burst from him. Vidyut watched in silence. Then when he could hold no longer: ’We’re achieving what you humans never could, not in your dreams, and you laugh at us?’

One of his subordinates tensed a finger on his trigger but the leader-bot calmed him - ‘No, Vayu’.

‘Answer me, Dr. Hans’ he demanded.

When Hans had stopped laughing his eyes were wet with tears of laughter. He looked deep into Vidyut, and said:

‘We could not do any of that, no. But we did the only thing that mattered - we loved.’

Vidyut stared blankly at Dr. Hans. Then noticed that the muzzle of the lightning-cannon pointed up. He leapt forward but it was too late. A bolt of lightning shot from the rumbling gun and scattered the doctor’s skull into a million tissues. It tore a hole in the ceiling and burnt blood drizzled over the doc’s headless body. The gun thudded to the floor and so did the doctor’s corpse. Blood continued to gurgle out of his neck onto the concrete. How distasteful, thought Vidyut, truly a primitive lifeform.

The subordinates stood inspecting the corpse alongside their leader-bot. They had witnessed the death of Earth’s last human. Around his neck, a heart shaped locket sparkled in the sun that spilled through the torn ceiling. Vidyut groped at the chain and raised it to the sun. He opened the heart shaped locket in his palm. Two heart-shaped halves - one had a picture of Dr. Hans in it, smiling and full of life. The other half had in it a woman with deep, inviting eyes and a sincere smile. Her golden hair dropped to a clean cut around her chin and along her neck ran a respi-vent just like Vidyut’s.

A shudder shook the leader-bot. He turned to his subordinate: ‘Hey Vayu, what is love?’