Toxic clouds of orange and gray flowed through the sky, casting long shadows over the broken dome and dusty city within. The steel half-sphere structure stood like a skeleton, its triangle grid holding massive panels of glass, each one a hundred feet across and four feet thick, stressing to hold their shape and position as the aging framework shifted and deformed with age. Decades of increasing pressure proved too much as another panel cracked and splintered, releasing a half-ton fragment of solid glass.
As gravity took its course, the transparent boulder sped toward the quiet city below and slammed into an open plaza, cratering the concrete ground and sending a cloud of ashes and dust into the air. Automated doors slid open, their motion sensors triggered by the impact and flying bits of debris. But as the seconds ticked by, the plaza and its nearby buildings slowly returned to their quiet dusty state.
As the dust cloud dissipated, a humanoid shape of wires, servos, and armored-body plating emerged from behind one of the buildings. Metallic joints creaked with every step as mechanical legs carried it to the edge of the crater, robotic eyes opening one by one to take in as much data as possible. Several beeps, clicks, and other erratic sounds echoed from its broken speakers as the automaton tried and failed to broadcast a warning.
Initial scans showed no citizens in the area. A more advanced AI would have noted how odd the situation was, for the plaza to be vacant in the middle of a weekday, but the security drone ignored those details. Instead, it obeyed standard procedure and continued assessing the damage. Data and pictures alike filed into a report for city-central, where someone would presumably read the document. Once enough data had been gathered, a pair of antennas extended from the tops of the drone’s armor plated shoulders.
Establishing the uplink to central took far longer than regulations allowed, a side effect of the deteriorating bandwidth and rusty circuits. Nevertheless, a side program noted the violation and logged a ‘failure to perform’ complaint against the manufacturer.
Uplink to Central pending… pending… link established.
Unit S713: Reporting structural damage to grid 14.7 by 02.8, surface level. Uploading visual record.
As the drone waited for a reply, the basic AI tried to remember the last time it had received a reply from an active administrator instead of the automated system. The query continued for several seconds before a reply interrupted the process.
Central: Event logged. Report received. Notifying structural repair crews… all repair crews are currently busy. Expected time till arrival, 1242 cycles. Resume security patrol.
S713: Order received. Warning, unit S713 is 162 cycles past recommended service life. Requesting maintenance update.
Central: Warning acknowledged. All maintenance bays are occupied. Resume security patrol.
Antennae retracted, the drone swept the area with thermal cameras one last time, searching for any citizens who might have been injured. Statistically, the business district averaged 0.42 citizens per square meter at this time of day, making the probability of injuries very high. But as the scan finished, S713 only detected large amounts of trash and discarded merchandise.
Zero indications of injured citizens. Resuming security patrol.
The drone marched out of the plaza and down the next sidewalk on its pre-programmed patrol route, sidestepping debris and abandoned vehicles. It scanned license plates as it went, logging the ones that were still legible and issuing automated tickets for illegal parking. The one’s it couldn’t read were re-categorized as terrain obstacles to be cleared, and tagged with biohazard warnings because of the decaying piles of biomatter inside.
An audible clang of metal on concrete broke the silence. S713 calculated where the sound had come from—sixty yards down a side street—and stepped away from the normal patrol path, crossing into an area it had no record of ever being in before. As the drone neared the sound’s origin point, it reached a walled residential district. Rusty cars laid across the gated entrance, stacked atop one another to form a barricade. The paint jobs had been ruined by weapons fire, burnt tires, and shattered windows. Charred masses of biomatter and broken firearms lay scattered across the area, along with the debris of several security drones.
Scanning the zone, the AI logged its findings as a long list of trash waiting for removal and processing by a waste disposal unit. Almost ready to return to its normal patrol route, a small flicker of movement from beyond the barricade caught S713’s attention.
The security drone would have ignored it because there was no indication of a crime being committed, but then a notification popped up in its system. 162 cycles ago, the entire residential area had been quarantined for biohazards and the restrictions were still in place, meaning if a citizen had entered, they would require escorting out of the area for their own safety. Protocols triggered, S713 faced the barricade, bent its legs and released a surge of power through its motors. All four hundred pounds of metal and plastic lept over the stack of ruined vehicles and landed in a standing position on the other side, the hard impact nearly cracking the concrete under its metal feet.
Looking ahead, the drone saw dozens of houses lining the sides of the road. Each prefabricated building and yard looked almost identical to the next, except for broken windows, large patches of dead grass, and leafless shrubberies–violations it would later relay to the housing department.
Scanning the houses nearby, S713 searched for signs of human activity but struggled to see through the layers of dirt and dust covering the windows. Several were lit, presumably by the lights inside, but most were dark. A decrease in light from one of the windows caught the drone’s attention. Switching to a thermal camera, S713 zoomed in on the window. The glass temperature registered as six degrees warmer than any other house on the block.
Extending its antennae once again, S713 connected with the district’s power grid and checked the power consumption of this particular house over the past hour–none.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Uplink to Central pending… pending… link established.
Unit S713: Inconsistencies found in quarantined housing, District 481. Moving to investigate. Requesting secondary unit.
Central: Acknowledged. Additional units currently unavailable. Maintain connection until investigation is complete.
Following standard protocols, the security drone began shutting down non-combat functions and ran a quick self diagnostic–power reserves full and 84% of processors ready for real time calculations.
S713 marched up to the front door and knocked. The speakers built into the drone’s robotic face issued a loud series of beeps, clicks, and other erratic tones–the audio files long since scrambled by data corruption. Despite this, S713 waited and listened in silence for several seconds, as regulations required, then played the message a second time. With no answer detected, the drone sent a power surge through its legs and kicked the wooden door off the hinges, sending splintered fragments halfway across the room inside. Stepping through the entryway, S713 turned its audio and visual receptors to maximum sensitivity, to better analyze everything.
Fresh shoe prints in the dusty carpet, half-melted candles on the table—still warm from recent use—scratches around a wall-mounted security keypad, and the fast rhythmic breathing of one, possibly two, organics nearby.
Unit S713: Possible citizens detected.
Analyzing the sounds should have indicated their position, but the range of possibilities was too wide. Body size, age, behind a door, muffled by a cloth… Each variable required exponentially more processing power to predict. S713 could merely choose one series of possibilities and moved closer to the presumed source, somewhere in the kitchen.
An erratic noise screeched from the drone’s speakers, a warning garbled into nonsense. As if triggered by the sound, the pantry door shifted. S713 stepped closer, its left arm reaching for the door with slow, robotic movements.
Mechanical fingers mere inches from the handle, a rapid series of sounds echoed around the room. The AI processed the noise faster than it could react-a wooden door thrown open, several rapidly approaching steps, and the rising volume of a shout.
Turning to face the source, a heavy impact slammed across the exterior plating of the drone’s head. In the half second that followed, S713 sensed itself falling towards the ground, grabbed the kitchen counter for balance, and tried to rotate its head a full 180 degrees to see the attacker. Protocol required it to determine if citizens were nearby before engaging a threat, but one impact after another sent waves of static and error signals through its processors, making a proper analysis of the input impossible. After a half-dozen strikes, the AI managed to relay the situation to Central.
Central: Threat acknowledged. Combat force is now authorized.
Before the eighth swing connected, the drone kicked with a powerful mechanical leg. The metal foot slammed into the center of an unidentified biomass, sending the anomaly across the kitchen and through a wall.
S713 stood and turned to follow the attacker, its line of sight blocked by falling debris, but only made it two steps before another noise reverberated from the pantry. Before the drone could look back at the source, two organic shapes wrapped around its head and pulled backwards, stressing the joints in the bot’s mechanical neck. A moment later, 120 pounds of unexpected weight hung from S713’s frame as the organic mass shifted back and forth. Blinded by the assault, S713 couldn’t even determine the threat level of the attacker.
Unit S713: Threat level unknown. Stalemate scenario. Engaging purge protocol.
An electric whine emanated from several internal mechanisms. Half-a-second later, the drone’s power reserves and the full output of its generator were dumped into a continuous circuit throughout the exterior plating. S713 heard a high-pitched scream from close behind while its particle sensors detected organic material being electrically burned. As always, it logged the sensor data, despite knowing that all its recent memories would be scrambled and corrupted. The purge protocol had a tendency to do that.
***
…Error… Reboot… Error… Reboot…
After several failed attempts, the security drone’s backup drive kicked in, allowing the AI to begin reactivating its mechanical body. Joints moved to test if they were still functional or not. Manipulators, elbows, knees, and a variety of internal systems each registered as functional, although some only partial. Checks complete, S713 attempted to lift itself off the ground but detected an unexpected weight holding it down.
Pushing the unknown biomass off to the side, S713 rose and surveyed the area. An abandoned house with significant damage, standard city-issued furniture, half-melted candles, and two large biohazard masses. One had been charred to a crisp, while the other lay in the living room leaking fluids into a growing puddle. The situation did not match normal operating routines.
Begin memory recall… Error. Data corrupted. Purge protocol has been enacted. Loading last intact memory log.
The AI watched a video file and read the associated metadata.
Reporting a new crater and resulting structural damage…
The lack of citizens nearby and how it had continued along the normal patrol route…
The data fell into a scrambled mess after the citations for illegally parked vehicles. With no conclusive answer, the AI did what it was programmed to do whenever it was confused.
Uplink to central pending… pending… link established.
Unit S713: Situation unknown. Please advise.
Central: You are currently in housing district 481. Return to pre-programmed route and resume security patrol.
S713 filed another biohazard report with Central—noting the two biohazards in the house—sent a notice of search and entry to the registered owners of the house and marched away. Meanwhile, it continued to sort and compile its recent memories until it found an incomplete query.
When was the last time it had received a message from an actual administrator instead of the automated system? The curious drone restarted the query and searched its long term files. Memory search, 23%, 48%, 77%...
Buried in the oldest section of its main hard drive, S713 found a single video file, 162 cycles old, tagged with the appropriate metadata—a living person, making an emergency city-wide broadcast.
S713 scanned the video frame by frame as only a robot could. The middle-aged woman made several fast erratic movements, leaned over her desk, and screamed into the camera. The metadata labeled her as Mrs. Miller, assistant secretary of Central Administration, but as the AI scanned the footage it only registered an organic biohazard making high decibel noises.
A more advanced AI might have recognized the sounds as words to be analyzed. Instead, S713 scanned the anomalous video as it showed a waste disposal drone breaking through the office door. Mrs. Miller grabbed a ceramic vase from a pedestal and threw it at the drone, but the machine continued toward her at a consistent robotic pace. Gripping her arms with metal clamps, the invader pushed her down into a cargo container and forced the lid shut to form a locked, airtight seal. Muffled screams continued from inside as the disposal drone placed a label on the outside that read “Biohazard: Incinerate”. The container continued to shift and shake violently as the drone hoisted it into a cargo slot on its back and walked out of the room.
The video continued to show the now vacant office as the occasional biohazard ran past the broken door in the hallway beyond, often with a security or waste disposal drone close behind. The footage continued like that for over an hour, until the recording ended itself automatically.
Unit S713: Resuming security patrol.