Automation: Chapter 7

A small credit card dropped from the letter as Jack finished reading it. Jack picked it up and read his fathers’ name across the front. His dead fathers' name. His dead father whose funeral he missed because he was too scared or stubborn to leave his little room. A room he had been hiding in for longer than he wanted to admit. While he was hidden away, having every need and whim served to him by robots he summoned on a screen, the world, including his parents, as far as he knew, had been wiped out. He should have ordered Chinese instead.

Jack wanted to be surprised by this realization but the long ride here to his childhood home had been a desolate one. The theory that everyone was just at work died in the first minutes of the drive. From the back of the auto-cab all that passed by the window was row upon row of boarded-up houses, businesses and apartment mega-complexes. Everywhere the word ‘REDUNDANT’ sprayed painted in deep red, meticulous letters across every entrance. Museum mile, ‘REDUNDANT’. The ring of suburbs with its million tiny homes, ‘REDUNDANT’. The whole of St. Lazarus hospital district, ‘REDUNDANT’. Over and over, as far as Jack could make out.

Even the Ann Arbor District, where he grew up and still in his memory as an open university town filled with parks and rich college kids skipping class, had become a ghost town. Now there was nothing but boards and spray paint. When he was dropped off, Jack told the auto-cab to wait while he found a way inside but it seemed his free ride was over.

“UNKNOWN COMMAND.” the speaker in the division had barked at him. “ACCOUNT DELETED.”. Then, without warning, sped off around the corner and out of sight.

Jacks’ childhood home matched all the others. Perfectly cut plywood was nailed over any and every opening. After Jack circled his old house, it took him a full ten minutes to pry the board away from the front door, just for it to be locked.

‘Of course, it’s locked.’ he thought ‘What is it with me and doors today?’. As a kid, if he was locked out and needed to sneak back in, Jack would climb in through the kitchen window that didn’t lock properly but that was boarded up like the rest of the house and Jack was not interested in spending another ten minutes prying plywood. After starting to freak out again, Jack remembered his parents hid their spare key under their old fashioned welcome mat. They were the only people Jack knew that still had one and he could not be more thankful for their stubbornness. If only good ideas were hereditary.

The house was dark and empty. To Jack, it felt like some far off cave, undiscovered by man. Almost everything was just as he remembered it. The pale blue paint in the kitchen, the grey tile in the bathroom and of course his thick wooden bedroom door. Jack could viscerally remember laying in his bed at night, trying to sleep, staring at this door, imagining his future or reliving the day before or even just trying to get his brain to shut off so he could sleep in the years before they had smart sleep mask.

It was in his old room where Jack found a letter from his mother, along with the credit card, on his old dresser. Now all he had to do was find the spare key to his apartment. That is if he can make his legs move again. While Jack was reading the letter, his legs seemed to have lost their bones. Just like in some saccharine movie, Jack had fallen back onto his childhood bed and now found himself unable to get up or able to stop himself from sobbing. ‘How could this have happened?’ he thought, ‘How could I let this happen?’.

After the auto-cab sped off around the corner, it sent off a message to central HQ. ‘ENDUSER JACK 3704 LOCATION UPDATED. ENDUSER JACK 3704 AT 42.276210,-83.743183. TERMINATING PROGRAM’. With the message sent, it pulled itself into an empty street-level spot and shut itself off for good.

Once the message is sent out, two doors rattle open at the automated police station on Main Street five blocks over and two armored bots rolled out and headed towards their newest target.

Jack wiped his eyes and took a few deep breaths to release the stinging sensation trapped in his lungs. He hadn’t realized that crying wasn’t going to help him now. What Jack needed now was a plan.

As far as Jack could see, he had maybe three options. He could try and run or hide from whatever was coming. It was safe to assume something was coming at some point. Jack couldn’t think of anything special about himself that would leave him off the kill list and he couldn’t figure out how he hadn’t been taken out already. The problem with that plan was that Jack couldn’t think of anywhere to hide that technology wasn’t already. Even the millions of acres of corn between here and the Rockies was stalked by automated farm tech. Plus, there is no running faster than the electronic pulse it takes to send a message from the servers to the Enduser.

So if he couldn’t run and he couldn’t hide, Jack only had one hope of surviving. He had to get back to work and to do that he had to get back into his apartment before anyone, or in this case, anything, noticed he was gone. If ordering and review useless crap off the net was what was keeping him alive, he would keep at it for as long as he could. At the very least it would buy him time until he thought of an escape plan.

The thing is, Jack wondered if it wasn’t already too late. He had never missed a day of work. How could he? The commute was ten steps round trip. Even when he caught the most severe stomach bug in his life, he still pulled himself to his office chair and gave a few items five stars and order Nano-Meds before blowing chunks in his old toilet. But if this letter his mom left is any indication, it doesn’t take much to become redundant. Unfortunately, this was the best chance he had. Jack had to find that key.

With one more focusing breath, Jack stood and started searching. He tore through his old room fairly quickly with no luck. All he found were things that brought back once lost memories of his childhood. Old toys, drawings and old tablets with ebooks still on them. He would stay up way past his bedtime watching comics and internet celebrities under his blanket. If there wasn’t such an oppressive threat looming, Jack could have spent all night reminiscing with his childhood things. His spare keycard obviously wasn’t here so he took one last look at the room he grew up in before moving on to the rest of the house.

Luckily for Jack, there wasn’t much house to search. At most, it had only ever been the three of them and even back then housing was sparse. Even having this two bed and one bath was a bit extravagant. The first place he looked was his parents' room without any luck. All that was in there was neatly folded clothes, a properly made bed, and stale air. He couldn’t find it in his room or his parents’ and it wasn’t on the counter or coffee table. His key wasn’t even in the coffee tables item history. Jack started to panic thinking maybe his parents had lost it or kept it on them which would mean they took it to their grave.

‘If I had something I had no designated place for,’ Jack thought, trying to calm himself, ‘where would I put it?’. He looked around the now tossed home as it dawned on him. ‘A junk drawer.’ the thought, like a lightning bolt, came to him, ‘Everybody has a junk drawer.’. That is where he kept his key so maybe his parents did the same. Good ideas weren’t hereditary but maybe habits were.

He frantically rifled through the kitchen drawers until he found one that seemed to have no theme or purpose. He frantically shoved away empty pens, faded receipts, and assorted screws. In a fit of panic, he pulled the whole drawer out and dumped it on the counter. Then there, on top of the pile of assorted useless junk, was just what Jim needed, his spare keycard.

Just then Jack heard a squealing sound from the area of the front door. Like a frightened rabbit, Jack whipped around. A screw that had been attaching the board over the doorway to the house clinked to the ground and rolled under the gap under the door. There, casting a shadow in the fading sunlight making its way under the door, was two large wheels just like the ones attached to standard police bots. Jacks first instinct was to just explain to them what had happened and tell them he was on his way back to his apartment to get back to work. He’d explain that it was all an accident and that’d it never happen again. But Jack then thought back on all the interactions he had already had in the last 24 hours with AI and how well that had gone and decided to just run instead.

Jack snatched his spare key and stuffed it into his pocket next to the credit card that carried the balance of his parents' dreams of escape. As fast, but as quietly, as he could he made his way to the bathroom on the opposite side of the house. In the bathroom was a window just big enough for Jack to squeeze through. He hoisted himself on to the tank of the toilet, opened the window and with all his might, kicked the plywood board that was secured over the opening. Luckily for him, this board had been here a while and broke off in only two kicks, taking some of the siding on the house with it. Across the house, two more screws clattered to the ground.

Jack landed less than gracefully in the alley that let out on Maynard. He did his best impression of the spy movies he had rated in the past, keeping low and darting from cover to cover. He wasn’t particularly good at it but fortunately for him, he was the only one around. So no one saw when he tripped over the curb or smacked directly into The Cube sculpture trying to duck under it. While no people were around to see his lack of dexterity, several security cameras did and started a live feed directly to the two police bots who were sweeping through a home that was supposed to be unoccupied but showed signs to the contrary. With their new information, they swiveled back to the door and slowly but surely followed the feed.

Despite the obstacles, Jack made his way to The Quad. What was once a park full of yuppie students scrolling their feeds and downloading class lectures, was now an overgrown park with broken ad screens glitching to life as Jack ran by them. The police bots giving chase didn’t need the feed. They could just follow the glow of screens that haven’t been on in years. A path lit up with ads for products no longer in production. Throughout The Quad the silence was broken with slogans and deals.

“Remember! Only Milliamp Energy can get you through your next all-nighter! Get one today!”

The police bots started scanning the area for human heat signatures. The live feed showed the redundancy headed southeast, darting behind anything he thought would conceal him.

“The new ScrubberBot X7 can keep even the filthiest dorm room clean! Order one now and have same-day drone delivery!”

Jack dipped down into the tunnel under the West’N’Ready Hall. He could hear the sound of approaching commercial broadcast and thick rubber tires. Jack desperately tried to formulate a plan.

“Try the new Auto-Shower Plus! Better in every way! Five stars say END-USER JACK 3704.”

The patrol units executed maneuver #740 and split up. One kept following while the other sped its way around to the exit of the tunnel their prey just entered. The bot following behind crept forward and opened the compartment on what would most would call its shoulder to reveal a loudspeaker.

“ENDUSER JACK 3704. YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND UNSATISFACTORY AT YOUR CHOSEN OCCUPATION. YOU ARE NO LONGER EMPLOYABLE AND ARE NOW REDUNDANT. PLEASE COME OUT COOPERATE.”

Jack bolted for the other end of the tunnel, unable to hide under the blaring blues, purples, and reds of the screens lining the passageway that chirped like mad with special offers. He was surrounded by things he had bought and reviewed just to throw away and earn enough credits to buy more stuff to review. It was a useless life but still a life he wanted desperately to get back to now. He ran as fast as he could but before he could reach the darkened opening at the other end of the tunnel, a police bot skid around the corner, blocking his escape. Jack turned started back but the other bot was already covering that exit.

“Wait! Please! I was just locked out of my apartment. It’ll never happen again! Look!” He held out his spare key. “I’ve got a spare key. I can get in and work now! I’m not redundant! I can wor-”

A shot echoed through the tunnel, silencing the screens. Jack collapsed into a heap on the pavement. He tried to form words but he couldn’t in time. It was too little, too late for Jack and he drifted off.

The police bots rolled back into their lockers at the station. They had tossed the body into the mobile incinerator that had been summoned while a tiny army of scrubber bots from the dorms nearby wiped down the tunnel pavement, cleaning up any trace of blood. Another redundancy, a drain on the system, corrected. Another bug squashed.

The roller doors clicked shut and the police bots shut down. The mobile incinerator pulled back into its garage and the scrubber bots docked themselves back into their charging stations. Everything once again was running at max efficiency. Now, without any Endusers, the human element had been removed from the model. Without the risk of human error, sectors of the city started to shut down one by one. First the non-essential services like advertising and AI prime time. Slowly to auto-cabs and ambulance drones. Before long the constant hum of an electric, automated city died down and the only sound you could hear was the wind twisting through the empty skyscrapers.

Once again the world was quiet. Nothing was running things because, for the first time in a long time, there was no one to run things for. As for the last Enduser, all of their subscription services had been canceled, debt erased, and records archived, including a B&E and resisting arrest charge. Black marks on an otherwise spotless record. All of this information was saved just before all the archives were shut down. Finally, after the whole city had gone dark, the last remaining light on the 37th floor of GilbertCo Tower clicked off. Leaving the world to whatever was left and whatever would come next.