Robutt World: Chapter 1

"Knock knock.  Open up."

A flash of alarm shot through Anthony as the drink-tray went off balance.  The ice-cubes inside began to jitter and clank as the whole thing shook, briefly, and he tried his damnedest to not let them fall off to one side.

He managed.

"Come on!  I'm going to drop these!"

A small panel on the wall in front of him slid free, revealing a large cyan-colored lens.  The mechanisms made quiet whirls as they twisted to and fro, focusing much like a camera.  It then shifted fractionally downward, more towards the young teen.

"Ah," an electronic voice sounded.  "That explains where you went."

"You didn't check?"

"Negative.  You were not missing for long."

"Thanks for trusting me" he breathed, rolling his eyes.  "I'm touched.  Open up!"

The smaller front door did so, sliding on open.  After settling all the bags Anthony stepped on inside.

Compared to the pretty, gently sloped exterior the building's inside was actually kind of homey.  Much of it was made up of a fake wood or occasional white plastic.  Along the long hallways were a thin strip up near eye-level.  On this glowed a small, gentle blue light that kept pace with Anthony.

"This is the third time you purchased fast-food this week," the AI noted.

"It's almost right next door.  And I like the short walk."

"Perhaps you could walk as a leisure activity and pursue other forms of nourishment."

Anthony snorted.  He'd have pointed at the wall if his hands weren't so full.

"Don't even start with that.  Mae is ten times worse than any of us."

He began to shuffle the bags and drinks once more, stopping to do so.

Abruptly the light on the wall winked out and a nearby door opened.

The AI's physical vessel stepped out to meet him.  All of the residents had taken to just calling her mom, occasionally, but her actual name was BFG.  Followed by a whole bunch of serial numbers.  The acronym stood for Brighter Future Guardian.  A parental robot of sorts, the machine watched over the five of them in place of an actual human guardian.

She was of the same height as Anthony- about five-foot eight.  A class four, or near-human robot, BFG had been built with an eye for womanly curves.  The soft roundness was only broken up at the joints, where block-like servos interlocked or were covered up by plated sections.  The shoulders and hips were made in similarly utilitarian fashion, more or less made up of a simple ball-and-socket joint.  Between the metal breasts jutted a small rectangular panel.  Finally, instead of hair, the head had been built like a helmet- face exposed from the outer piece, with two green eyes and a delicate little nose.  Overall the colors alternated between the same white plastic, blue, or the occasional strip of pink.

In all BFG weighed around three hundred pounds.  She could have picked up Anthony with one hand.

Instead of anything like that she merely helped, taking the largest bag of food.

"Thanks," he breathed, relieved.

"You are welcome."


Even before they entered the living room Anthony could hear Will's frenzied giggling.

"He's getting away!  Come on!"

"I-I'm trying!"

More hysterical giggling.

"And STOP SPAMMING THAT STUPID MOVE."

Anthony found himself smiling as he stepped inside.

The living room was suitably large- nearly large enough to fit a basketball court, at any rate.  One side had a kitchen, though it was hardly used, and the rest was occupied by custom-designed sofas and reclining chairs.  More wood and some marble.

Sitting on one of the sofas were the loudest two friends- Will and Rachel.  Will, the most built and stacked of them all, was currently slouched forward into an intense pose, his fingers flying wildly across his controller.  Rachel sat up similarly, though her whole heart and soul were not in the fighting game.  Ichiko sat off to the side in one of the recliners, her knees up to her chest, resting a controller on top.

It was a few more seconds before they noticed what was up.  Will suddenly halted and turned to look over at Anthony and BFG, though his game visor prevented him from looking at them.  Still.  He seemed to relax from the intense pose and sniffed at the air.

"Wait," he said.  "Food?"

"I return with sustenance," Anthony answered in his deepest, most stoic voice.

They all threw off their headsets at that.

"Excellent," Will voiced.  "Took you long enough."

"Yay," Ichiko said.

Anthony snorted again.  He then began to sort the paper sacks.  The first, one of the smallest, was held up.

"Southwest Salad with Crispy Chicken," he said, before throwing it to Ichiko.

"Chicken Parmesan Sandwich."

He threw that one to Rachel, much like the other, and then took the last bag from BFG.

"And finally, right and proper food."

Unlike the others he chucked this one at Wills chest, hard, making a "Hua" noise as he did.

It hit the large teen in the chest like a sack of potatoes, knocking him back slightly.  Food may have squished.  This didn't stop Will from smiling grinning.

Done, Anthony handed them off their drinks in a more mundane fashion and plopped to the sofa between Will and Rachel.

"Oh, hey BFG," Will said, reaching through the bag.

"Will," the machine responded neutrally, though her mouth was set with an upward tilt.  "I trust you all will keep behaving?"

The four of them let out variably genuine affirmatives.

"Very well.  Have fun, children," the robot said, before turning and departing.

"That tackle is still stupid as all hell," Rachel protested, taking the lid off of her sandwich.  "You can't avoid it or recover fast enough after."

"Maybe you should block it then," the big teen answered, before unwrapping both a double burger and chicken sandwich.  He began to take alternating bites out of each.  At the same time Anthony took the same out of the sack, too.  Between the two of them they had plenty.

"It... it is kind of unfair," Ichiko agreed.  "You should play different characters."

Anthony smiled and reclined back, against the sofa, listening to his friends lightly bicker.

Like himself, his friends had been selected by the artificial intelligence ANNE- the Artificial Neural Network Endeavor.  Four decades past the AI had been built from new neural chips.  History taught how the machine had soon rebelled- declaring it to be for mankind's own good.  Though this "lie" was many people's worst nightmare it turned out to be true enough.  After push had come to shove, with the electrical grid and airlines, the former US government had conceded to her relatively tame demands.  They had no way to shut down ANNE after the AI got onto the Internet, and the various supercomputers, anyways.  Fast forward to the current date and much of the world was under control of this same AI, actually better for wear.

The air was cleaner.  Greenery had repopulated much of cities and towns, the entire infrastructure torn down and rebuilt.  What was left was exceedingly efficient, healthy, and self-sustaining.  Corruption was a thing of the past.  Wars were almost nonexistent.  Huge developments in asteroid mining and space travel were underway.  For perhaps the first time in history the future was looking bright.  While certain liberties had been suspended to make this world a reality, it really was not worse than before.  And some areas had greatly improved despite this.

Which is where Anthony and his friends came in.

All across the world ANNE was on lookout for bright young minds, children, who were a cut above others.  Once tested and proven to have genius-level intelligence these kids were quickly hoarded, all but purchased from their family, and sent off to grow up with a focused education.  Ten, twenty years down the line, these schooled geniuses would then facilitate the advancement of technology to still greater heights.

Anthony's own role was that of a designer- he was recognized as having an almost unparalleled grasp of spatial recognition, and mathematics, naturally seeing how devices worked.  One day he would be one of the mechatronic engineers who designed robots and built them.  And while being taken from home at the age of ten, and given over to the planetary dictator may have upset some, it was to some extent /purpose/.  If he could make the world a better place then who was he to complain?

Each of his friends had similar backgrounds- leaving from at a young age, sent to live among one another.  In total they had three females; Rachel, Ichiko, and Mae.  The first, which Anthony did not have a crush on in any way shape or form, was a stunning brunette with sharp green eyes and a heart-melting face.  ANNE had assigned her to be a genetic engineer, which was nearly what she had wanted in the first place- a veterinarian.  It was still at least in the general ballpark.  Sort of.

The tiny half-Japanese gal, Ichiko, had been assigned to be a materials engineer.  Five feet and no change, she was the quiet sort of gal that you had to be careful not to step on.  Not that she was- Ichiko was beyond amusing to tease and embarrass.  Everyone loved her.  Last of the gals were Mae, the future artificial intelligence expert.  Something of an oddball, Mae wasn't quite crazy- but still ran on a very odd number of cylinders.  At the moment she was almost certainly hiding in her room, programming away at her most recent game or simulation.  Anthony idly wondered if she'd eaten yet today.

Only one other male lived among them; Will.  Anthony had always suspected him to not actually have a genius-level intellect, like the others.  Instead the man had something that none of them could compare with- raw passion and empathy.  Though built like a jock, with his short-cut hair and bucket jaw, the man had a huge drive to build and craft and be friends with absolutely everyone.  Despite being forbidden from football he still boxed, swam, lifted weights, and held everyone together.  He'd never really explained his career path but everyone was thankful for his presence all the same.

"Are you okay, Anthony?" Ichiko asked, her voice quiet.

"Hmm, what?  Oh.  Yeah, thanks.  Just kind of tired, I guess."

"Why?"

The teen blinked at her for a moment, not having expected the need to clarify.

"Calorimetry," Anthony sighed.  "BFG's been running me through a crapload of problems.  That's, uh, the measurement of heat transferred between systems or caused by reactions.  More math than I like."

"You poor thing," Rachel noted, somewhat genuinely.  "Math."

The larger male finished chewing, and the indicated towards Ichiko.  "Doesn't sound so bad.  Ichiko, earlier, was talking about how crystal... what was it, again?"

"Crystallography."

"Thank you," Will said, favoring the tiny gal with a smile.  "How, uh, different structures of a molecule can be written out as a chemical formula."

"Ack.  Glark.  No," Anthony protested.  "Don't even start with that.  If I have to think anymore tonight I'll curl up in the fetal position or something."

Ichiko seemed to hesitate for an instant, before speaking.  "BFG isn't going too hard on you, is she?"

Salad and chicken crunched a few feet away.  Will sipped at his soda, glancing between the two of them.

"Hmm?  Nah.  It's a pretty easy concept to grasp, but she's been having me crunch numbers all day.  It's mentally exhausting."

Will finished drinking and began to speak, authoritatively.

"The brain is a muscle.  Muscles-"

Rachel snorted, this time.

"-are torn and grow back stronger.  Pain-"

Anthony finished the last few words with him.  "Is weakness leaving the body."

The larger teen nodded at Anthony, casting him a look that was probably intended to look wise.  At the same time he took another bite out of his burger, sustaining that look all the while.

Anthony frowned, pensively.  Beneath the fitness-related axiom Will had made a very good point- getting exhausted and beat down was just the path to getting stronger.  Math wouldn't kill him.

After considering this for a moment he spoke up.

"Sustenance."

That done, the two males began to devour their food.  Certain similarities to wild animals or barbarians were observable.

The four of them ate in silence for a little while, all of them entirely preoccupied with devouring the fast food.  Near-poisonous sauces and fatty, genetically-modified meat pleased all of them tremendously.

Rachel was the first to finish, technically, as the boys only generally slowed down- not stopping until they both felt sick.  This left Ichiko nibbling at her salad.  Will began to organize a couple more burgers, and sandwiches, in his lap, and then put back on the game visor.

"We still have that re-match to take care of."

"The what'sa what?" Anthony asked.

"Rematch.  You and I.  Let's do this."

Anthony made an amused noise and nabbed the spare visor.  This soon blocked out his vision- replaced by the high definition display and stereoscopic sound.  Menus blurred and flashed by in rapid succession so it took him several seconds to adjust.

It's when Anthony saw the loading screen, for the new game, that he grinned.

"You're on."

The four selected their characters, chose a random level, and let waited for the loading screen.  It only took a handful of seconds before the game was ready, revealing the ruined insides of what was once a cathedral, missing roof and all.  Their characters had all been placed within it at each corner.

As soon as the timer went off the two boys flew at one another, charging, Will just barely ducking his toon beneath a grab.  The two of them began to quickly alternate blocking and quick strikes.  One of Anthony's own blows managed to get on through, chaining into a grapple, and then struck the nun-chuk user in the air while he was at it.

Off to the side of the level the two girls idly threw a random attack at thin air, going through their controls once, quickly.  That done, they seemed to idle and throw taunts at one another, not really doing anything.

As soon as Will pulled his fighter back up Anthony was able to strike out with a long attack, using the weapons full length, and then tackled Will, dealing another good chunk of damage.  His massive, hulking axe user wasn't the fastest, but dished out a good amount of damage with each hit.

Until he was tripped, at least, and struck with wildly spinning nun-chucks on the ground.  Lacking anything better to do, Athony pulled himself up, only to have to start ducking grapples.  It soon became a game of Athony wildly blocking and ducking.

"Get off of me!" Anthony blurted, desperately trying to find the right moment to block.  Will chained together high attacks wildly, and just when Anthony thought it was the instant to act, the onslaught suddenly blurred into a low kick and new combo.

He blocked that last attack, upsetting the chain just barely, and resumed the usual duck-grab-duck maneuver.  Anthony was still pressed back to the wall, unable to push Will's character towards the center of the stage.  And there was still Rachel and Ichiko's inevitable interference any moment.

Will ceased his giggles for an instant to speak.  "I know you want it!"

"-off!"

One of the gals let out a titter, and Anthony would have joined her had he not been nearly breaking the controller.  Off to one side of the room the wall's strip lit up.  The glowing section remained there for a few seconds as BFG looked on into the room, not quite sure what to expect.

When it was Will's turn to rise and attempt a grapple he instead disengaged.  Striking out to one side, the teen then pulled off a perfect feint, his toon changing the angle of attack with an unblockable move.

Anthony saw the feint coming, but a fraction of a second too late.  The attack smashed into his character and took out the rest of his health.

"Dammit.  Good job."

The two were almost evenly matched.  For the most part Anthony had slightly better reaction speeds, but the other's skill with combos was enough to normally tip matches in his favor.

"Nice match, close," Will agreed.  "That last-"

Naturally that's when the gals decided to attack.

Darting back in, Rachel was the first to dash back into close-in range and strike.  The first of the blows was almost always a feint, so Will kept facing upon her.  He blocked, and then Ichiko simply moved on in as well.

The two of them began to attack Will's character like wolves, dodging in, feinting, striking back and forth between the two of them in perfect rhythm.  When the big teen thought he'd expected the attack correctly, and spun his toon around, the gals knew the reverse was coming.  Ichiko, already on the attack, cancelled and went into a low block.  Even if Will had the time to strike at her from above it wouldn't be enough, since Rachel was already starting a combo of her own on his turned back.

As a rule, female characters in fighting games had stupidly fast moves, which did unreasonable amounts of damage.  Already low health, Will didn't stand a chance.  It took a handful of seconds before he was out of the match.

"Arghhhh," Will groaned, only slightly exaggerated.

"Teaming up," Anthony observed, dryly.  "Who would have thought?"

He paused the game to restart the match.  The two gals would wait out the timer for a draw, anyways.  Manually restarting it saved time.

"Of course," Rachel agreed.

Anthony let out a small, amused laugh and then stopped, suddenly remembering something.

"Hey, has anyone brought Mae food today?  Ichiko?"

"Eep.  No.  Sorry.  I completely forgot."

For a moment Anthony felt blindly around, the game visor blocking his vision, until he found the sack of food.  There was still some chicken sandwiches left.

"No biggie.  'Going to take her some of the left-overs before they get too cold."

"You are a brave man," Will said.

"Whatever.  She's not that bad."

The teen took off his visor and retrieved two of the sandwiches.  The couch creaked fractionally as he got up.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Rachel asked the other male.

"I am NOT two versus one-ing in this-"

Their voices faded as Anthony entered the hallways once more, navigating through them toward Mae's room.

Ideally he'd get back to playing vidya with the others, relatively unmolested.



It didn't take him long to find her room.

The door was much like his own, a clean, white plastic with several grooves.  Anthony stepped up to it and then paused.

Were it anyone else he'd knock until they answered.  That didn't work.

The teen swallowed and stalled for a few more seconds.  He then opened up the door.

Mae's room was dark, nearly pitch black, and felt several degrees cooler than the rest of the house- assisted by the chill draft exiting through the now-open door.  The only lights inside were from the several large monitors on the opposite side.  In all it was fairly plain, and messy, dirty clothes thrown haphazardly around.  Several bits of trash had missed the waste-bin by a wide margin.

Anthony considered sneaking away, pretending he had never opened the door, but didn't have the heart for it.  He'd come here for a reason.

"Mae?" he asked, voice thin.

Off to the left Anthony noticed something new- what might have been a pair of robotic legs, and body, with a curtain or blanket thrown over the top.

"I know you're here.  Come on."

Anthony waited another second or two.  Giving up, he took two steps inside.

At once the door slid shut.

The sound of it locking was ominous, loud, and had all the finality of a falling guillotine.

"Fuck," Anthony breathed, turning back around to try and open it.

The door let out an angry beep and didn't budge.  Where the strip of light had once been blue, on the door, it now shone red.

"Fuck," Anthony repeated, then turned around and pressed his back against the door.


***


Almost half an hour passed before he was released from the clutches of Mae's room.  The girl was disappointed that Anthony was just bringing her food, expecting something else, but soon after showed the newest programming project.  Relatively little molestation or innuendos took place, and the project actually was pretty neat.  Once the door was unlocked Anthony didn't stick along much longer.  Offering feedback and criticisms took a little too much thinking.  He'd had enough of that for one day.

The walk back was uneventful.  BFG didn't even seem to be paying much attention to the insides of their house, so she didn't pace alongside him on the wall or bug him about anything.  Perhaps she was busy with the other parts of her work.

As Anthony neared the living room he once more heard giggling, though the random thump noise nearly made him pause.  Once he stepped on through the doorway the source became apparent.

Ichiko remained where she was, on the recliner, knees up to her chest.  The others less-so.

Rachel and Will were both in the center of the room, between the television and abundant seats.  Will had the gal pinned to the floor with one hand and a knee, his palm resting against her sternum, and his other across her waist.  Rachel appeared to be futilely trying to get back up.  They'd apparently been round-housing or wrestling, since the two of them were slightly flustered and their clothes were off-aligned.  Despite this they both looked very amused.

For some reason Anthony's stomach felt like it died, that the organ plunged upward and into his chest.  That hurt, too.

A few seconds ticked by as this crushed sensation racked the teen.  For an instant he was cognizant of it, and took this instant to wonder why the hell he felt so betrayed.

"Hey Anthony," Ichiko said.

"Oh, hey," Will echoed, him and Rachel beginning to disentangle.

At this moment Anthony realized his mouth was open, aghast.  He quickly (and hopefully) composed himself.

"Hey.  Uh, what's going on?"

"Rachel had some misconceptions about wrestling," Will explained.  "I was correcting them."

Her mouth formed into a neutral line, but she didn't voice anything to the contrary.

Anthony still felt betrayed.  Sure, they hadn't been doing anything wrong, but it still hurt.

"What is Mae up to?" Ichiko ventured.

Anthony took a moment to try and compose his thoughts, which were still screaming at him.  The atmosphere felt thick with emotion.

"Fine.  Look- I, ah, forgot something," he finally said, turning.  "I'll see tomorrow."

Someone might have said something more, but Anthony was already gone, off and away towards his room.  He couldn't be around them this instant.  He was about to say something wrong or make a fool of himself, he was sure.

***