Unnatural

  * * * *

  The idea to loot Aberdeen Township High School struck Uriah with embarrassing obviousness. It was the easiest-accessed, nearest building that employed physical worker robots, at least during this time of year. Benefit auction season at a piteously underfunded public school for lower-class Organics. The convenience of it all pleased him as much as its relation to now-dead kids, who had suffered stratification to which he was no stranger, repulsed him. The animals at FHS should be able to stay fed for a couple hours.

  He sauntered over to the academy, finding, a bit to his horror, that it took only under a dozen EMPs to clear the security. It had the appearance of a school whose architects clearly wanted to establish a sleek and dignified facility, but whose primary occupants were too averse to their confinement to give a care about respect for property.

  Muffled sounds and the distinctive glow of what seemed to be a video presentation drew Uriah to a door at the end of one hallway. He blocked the sight of the seated, lifeless viewers with his left hand, and the insignia at the top-right corner of the still screen made his blood boil. Libertas.

  It made no sense. That company’s ubiquitous mechanical body, apparently a demo, was standing right next to the presenter, all but calling out to Uriah. He even made a few steps toward it, which rang out faintly through the room in a monopoly on sound. Ascension to a higher standard of living lay within reach of his fingertips, and the presenter doubtless possessed some documents outlining the installation process.

  But he drew back, like a child who has discovered too late that the stove is, indeed, hot. Uriah retreated to the door without looking away from the puppet, slamming the door in front of him once he reached the hall. He took a deep breath and moved along, looking for something to distract his mind.

  Curious, he followed his memories of high school to the one place in the building where he knew he could invariably find the most honest expressions of teenage thought – the lavatory. Those honest expressions tended to be Freudian in his school days, but he was impressed to find more maturity, if not cynicism, in these young closet autodidacts’ graffiti:

  Q: What’s the difference between a school and a prison? A: I don’t know. Ask the nerds when they’re finished being beat up by bullies when the so-called responsible adults aren’t watching, having their voices stifled by monotony and authority, being fed the bare minimum food quality, getting discriminated against for being gay, black, Latino, or trans, hearing condescension from their “superiors,” and being forced to do useless work. Oh, wait, at least prisoners do community service sometimes. Never mind. –Alonzo Y.

  Sights like this almost made him glad that society had vanished. Not even fellow Organics could find solidarity anymore. Deciding it would only depress him more to linger on impracticalities, Uriah briskly returned to the hall and stared down at the floor’s seemingly infinite pattern of yellow and gray as he continued.

  He found a horde of identical work-bots as soon as he entered through the large automatic doors. The silent killer had effectively frozen every simultaneous moment of human activity in time, and this effect was most noticeable here. While a committee of faculty and parents had been standing out of the way, discussing matters left forever ambiguous, the robots had evidently been in the middle of executing some pre-programmed mission.

  It was cruelly humorous to see the finished preparations of the event, with the laborers neatly aligned in what one could almost call an army formation. Uriah wondered vaguely if his sister’s plan for the Gallagher Corporation building’s construction was still becoming a reality at that very moment. Not like she deserved another second in his thoughts, the creep. “You brought this on yourself,” had been her last words to him.

  Uriah started up one of the androids, a Homunculus that, he found up close, was a product from a company called Metrauto. Fortunately, its emotionless voice told him how to input commands. “Follow me until I say ‘stop’,” he ordered. He heard the pleasantly soft footsteps of the machine behind him as he ascended the stairs to the gym balcony. “I guess you can see, huh? Stop.” Nothing but the sound of his own footfalls greeted him when he progressed towards the closet off to his right.

  Sure enough, a dozen more of the bots stood inside. That number, plus the fifteen in the gym, was just six shy of being convenient for his objective. Making some of the androids do a round trip would take too long, for the nearest store with all the materials he needed was at least three hours away for a running Homunculus.

  Fan-freaking-tastic. He barely dodged an EMP that had come from the ceiling.