Zit!...Zat!

Crackle! Crackle! Boom!mEOW!

     “Well that did not work, I should have known from prior testing,” I say in my voice full of strange high tones and low tones also with the occasional echo. That was an indirect description. My voice, to be blunt, is a robotic voice or like an A.I.’s from those old sci-fi stories humans told on a black section of a wall. I find those black rectangles a strange form of entertainment, back when I was first produced. Or should I say created? Maybe my birthday?

     Oh, I should continue with introducing myself, I always forget that when I talk to myself. I am No. 0067832 built by Maintenance, Search and Rescue, and Protection Services, also known as M.S.R.P.S. They started building automatons and robots to do the dangerous and boring jobs. Automatons do jobs such as working in place of a clerk, money exchanging jobs that require an A.I.’s intelligence speed, and work that requires fine hands to do. Robots, which I am (I forgot to tell you), do the heavy labor. We cut trees, work as bodyguards, act as 70% of the army, clean the sewers (I feel bad for those guys), and my job, or was my job, a firefighter.

     About the explosion from earlier, I was tinkering with my robot parts. Note to all conscious bots out there, do not integrate parts from rival companies, the viruses and malware are terrible to deal with. But I got lucky, the ear I was just attempting to attach to my head, only short circuited itself from my power source and shot off through the window into a cat (it deserved it). Ah, a small human female is charging up the apartment’s stairs and has the emotion known as anger on her face as my facial recognition program says. Her feet stomp on the rusty (I hate that word.....here we go)-autocorrect system online-discolored metal stairs and the sound echoes around and through the empty apartment complex I call home. Ah, I did not talk about my house yet. Oh I am truly sorry, I am such a despicable host.

     “Ahem”   

     “Welcome to Botopia! The place all--”My speech was rudely cut short at the sound of the rusty-executing autocorrect- antique doorknob screeching. Oh, it is the girl from earlier, the owner of the incompetent feline. I notice my facial recognition program is telling my that she has confusion on her face, so I address her, “Small human female, what is the meaning of this visit?”

     She just stands there looking at me with the same emotion her face then she starts laughing. Now it is my turn to be confused. After she recovers her oxygen, she hands to what appears to be a small trinket in her hands. Oh, the part that hit the cat. “Try not throwing things out the window next time,” she says with a snicker.

     “What,  something wrong with wearing a fedora and an overcoat similar to how detectives dressed in my early years,” I thought and as I was going to respond, the emotion confusion appeared on her face yet again. This is strange; now there is a look of comprehending.

     “Thank you for understanding,” she says after my unintentional lack of response. “Your detective outfit is still in fashion by the way,” she says as she turns to the door.

     “How did you--”, my response was cut off as she closed the door. So I will repeat my to the door, “How did she know about detectives?”, I speculated. To my knowledge this generation of humans does not know of detectives.

     Over the course of the next few weeks, she visits me, even if I locked the door. She found away in by climbing to the window; she crawled through the ventilation system: she even threw some bait in my apartment through the cracked open window, which in turn attracted the cat to journey up the complex’s wall into my apartment. I had to open the door to return the cat, but she waltzed in and plotted herself on the junkyard couch.

     When she first started to visit me, I would ask her why she visited me so often. Her only response was “Because I was bored” or “You’re enjoyable to be with”. I do not comprehend what is so “enjoyable” about hanging out with a seven-foot guy wearing a trenchcoat and a fedora (Yes, she still believes that I am a detective, and that is probably for the best. I do not want to die or be place under a scientist microscope just yet). She would just laugh even when I did not express my confusion which only made it more strange.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

     Roughly five weeks into her sneaking in even when I use countermeasures, I give up. That day she elegantly walked in and gave a victorious fist pump. The cat droppings are annoyance to clean because the girl would have nothing to do with it.      

     I soon was able to memorize when she came to visit. But the day I memorized her pattern of arrival, she did not come. Confused, I walk out of my apartment and to her “origin point”. The “origin point” really is just the corner I spy her walking from when she sneak-executing autocorrect- visited me. As I walk around the corner, I see a cardboard box that a refrigerator is packaged in. A closer look reveals doodles on the sidewalk around the cardboard box made from chalk. There was an entrance to the cardboard box, but I was too tall to enter. I crouch down on the ground and peek my head inside. Inside of the cardboard shack, I notice a makeshift bed on the left with a small box at the foot of the bed which was filled with near spoiled food. I sit there crouching for a moment and ponder over why one would in such place. Then I realize who did live there (I was made from a rather dense steel). The girl was the one that lived in this place.

     My thoughts were cut off track when I hear a meow. I look on the bed and see the cat that the girl kept. I crank my mental processor to discover where she would go without her cat. But that thought was cut off short from the blaring sound I get from my radio receiver.   

     “ATTENTION ALL FIRE RESPONSE OPERATIVES IN SECTION 10. MARKET NUMBER TEN IS IN SITUATION FIVE. I REPEAT MARKET NUMBER TEN IS IN SITUATION FIVE!!”

     Ouch that was loud, but new. That has never happened to me before and I never heard of situation five before. Before I ditched the fire department because action was rare and it was boring, there was only a situation three and that was a minor fire. It occurred to me that the situation is more than ever before. Not that I care, I quit ten years ago and have no reason to risk my life for another's. I look at the doodles and see a picture. Curious, I look closer and see a picture of a girl giving flowers to a tall guy. If there could be a look of horror on emotionless face, I would have one on. Market number ten is the only place in this section that sells flowers.  

     I immediately get up and go to the place I have hated most of my existence, the junkyard. The junkyard is a robot graveyard and would be a place of grief if any robots knew the broken, but sadly I am the only conscious robot I know of  so I was the only mourner. I go to the quarter of the junkyard reserved for the fire department and sift through the piles of remnant of the past. I soon find the tech used by the bots from my time, but I had to improvise for the fire extinguisher. The newer models for the extinguishers can not attach to the holder on my back, yet ducktape, one of the few surviving products of the past to still be useful, proved otherwise. All set up and prepared, I set out for the highway.

     As I sprint to highway, I catch a ride on a hover vehicle used for commercial product transportation. In a minute, I’m speeding down the highway on the transporter. I look up the highway and see the smoke the fire is making.

     “This is going to be a problem”, I said after noticing that the transporter is on the other side of the road, away from the exit. Luckily, I hear the wailing sound I got tired of on the fourth time I put out a fire, a firetruck. Well, now it is nickname the “firecraft” by the humans in the fire department. Off track, but it is important because it is going to go through the exit. I ready myself and jump onto the accelerating vehicle. It wobbled a bit as I grabbed the ladder on the back; the driver did not react so it was probably okay. I hoist myself up for a better position.

     Good thing I did that because the back of the craft hit the road. I look down and then backwards. Why was I flying? A second look backwards reveals to me that I miraculously ramped of the wreck of two hover crafts that were smashed by large pieces of metal. Oh, those metal pieces most have come from a gas tank that must have combusted to start the fire--Oh! Speaking of fire, did I say I actually was ramping into the building that is on fire. To those that hear my cry of agony: “Please bury me under a peach tree, I always wanted to eat a peach,” I say as I crash into the flaming building.

     My computer interface turns back on in about four minutes. Around me is what a human would describe as hell. In other words, fire is everywhere. I pick myself up and start up my infrared scanner to find the girl. My vision instantly becomes white with flicks of red and yellow. Well, that was stupid. I turn it off and search for her the old-fashioned way on foot and through my own two eyes.

     I enter what should have been the flower shop to try to find her. She was not there nor were there anyone else. As I enter the clothing section of the market, I notice something on the ground. As I approach, I notice it has a human form and is small. My engines speed up as I move closer. The humanoid, according to my scanners, is the same size as the girl. I feel my engines stop. This energy signature in my chest is different then I know of. It is cold. I heard this is similar to what humans call despair. Before I could drown is this despair, I hear a silent whimper from the dressing rooms.

     “Is that you girl?”, I call out.

     “Mr. Detective?”, she responds

     “How did you know it was me?”

     “Mr.Detective, you think out loud,” she says and then she laughs,“And that is a mannequin you are crying over.” A look back confirms her observation.