Snow, Silica, and Steel

Anton Kukal

Snow shrouded the landscape as Maxwell Morton moved through the woods with his ten-year-old son trailing five steps behind him. Heavy mounds covered the boughs of the evergreen trees bending them low. Long icicles hung from the branches of the leafless deciduous trees. The dull grey sky, still filled with swirls of ash, made the early afternoon seem like evening.

The woods in July were quiet as a winter’s day despite the season being summer in the lands of old Kentucky. The nuclear bombs had fallen ten years ago in 2095, and the ash carried into the sky by the mushroom clouds shrouded the world causing the Black Freeze. For years, a blanket of black snow and ice covered the world.

Instead of a balmy summer day, the world suffered the unending great freeze that had followed the collapse of civilization. Only in the past few years had the snow become white again. The skies remained grey, but on some days, the sun could be seen behind the clouds, and temperatures did rise above freezing in the deep days of summer. People said the world was getting warmer. Maxwell hoped so. He didn’t know how much longer they could survive if the world didn’t thaw soon.

For the past ten years, Max, his family, and almost one thousand others lived together in the hastily constructed Maxwell Motors survival shelter built in 2094 during the final days of the waning world. After the Mektron robot rebellion that summer, his father had used their family’s considerable financial resources to build a bunker complex deep beneath their factory. After the solar flare of 2095 burned out SolNet arrays all over the world, most of the workforce moved into the shelter with their families where they were protected from the bombs that fell later in the year.

With resources stretched thin and food running out, Maxwell and his son, Ajax, started hunting last year. The icy surface world was full of life because the energies of the apocalypse had mutated the plants and animals to survive the cold. The creatures roaming the icy woods provided much needed meat for the shelter. These days, five or six teams went out every week. The people in the shelter would have starved without hunting, but the frequent kills meant less animals, forcing the teams to range further to find food.

“Did you see that?” Ajax asked.

“See what?”

“Something shiny moving in the trees.”

“Shiny?”

“Like a kitchen sink.”

“Stainless steel?”

“No. The faucet.”

“Chrome?”

“Yeah. Shiny like chrome.” Ajax pointed. “There it is.”

Red eyes glowing behind clear ceramic lenses stared at them through the trees. The human shaped skull with the black speaker grill and prominent eye orbitals leered like death’s head. The steel exoskeleton, plated polished chrome, gleamed in the dull daylight. There was no doubt, a killer robot had found them.

Two hundred paces away, the Mektron robot’s hand lifted toward them, fingers splayed out as if waving, but probably pointing them out to nearby machines. At least this robot carried no gun and could not hurt them from a distance. The other robots were likely armed. They would shoot him and Ajax down in service of Mektron’s prime directive to exterminate humanity.

Max had not felt terror like this in more than a decade. His mind went back to Chicago. The burning city filled with heat, ash, and smoke. The human corpses piled high. The resounding footfalls of marching machines. The prison camp where he and Katey had huddled beneath the horrific symbol of Mektron, a stylized industrial “M” placed inside the ring of a sharp-toothed gear.

The full horror of the robot rebellion smashed back into his mind. Reflexively, he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, laid his cheek on the stock, sighted down the barrel, and fired. The crack echoed through the trees. The robot dodged to the side moving behind an evergreen tree. Desperately, Max fired again and again. Shooting into the tree blindly, causing ice and snow to splash off the branches, praying that the lead slugs would impact on the robot through the cover.

“Stop!” Ajax said.

Max lifted his finger from the trigger, but he did not lower the gun.

Ajax stood next to him with hands covering his ears. “You have to save ammo!”

“No,” Max whispered. “I have to kill that thing, or everything we love will die.”

The sudden fear Max saw on Ajax’s young face should have bothered him more, but his boy needed to know the seriousness of the situation. The young ones hadn’t lived through the end of days. They didn’t know how bad things had been. How bad things could be again.

“Wait here.”

Max rushed through the woods, holding the gun to his chin, aiming, ready to shoot if he saw the briefest flash of chrome. He reached the tree and found nothing except footprints in the snow leading off into the woods. The Mektron robot had retreated. It must have been alone. An unarmed scout sent to find human survivors.

Ajax ran up behind him. “Did you get it?”

“No, but I have too.”

“Why?”

“The robot will tell others we are here, and the Mektron legions will come.”

“Maybe it won’t.

“The robots will come. A machine is built for a purpose. A machine without purpose is nothing.”

“Maybe they changed?”

“Listen to me, the corporate owners of Mektron Industries promised their machines would free humanity from labor. The machines were built to serve us, but something went wrong. Someone, maybe even Mektron itself if you believe in that possibility, uploaded a new directive to the robots all over the world that changed their goals. In a twisted way, they became protectors of the Earth programmed to remove harmful and inefficient humans. Look at what our civilization did to this world. Trust me son, their sole purpose is to exterminate every last human on this planet.”

Ajax stood with his mouth open, probably more shocked by Max’s behavior than the actual words he had spoken.

“I’m sorry to dump this on you, but if I don’t kill that murderous machine the robot legions will come.”

“Are there legions?” Ajax asked frightened.

“I don’t know,” Max said, his voice almost breaking with the strain he felt. “But a dozen of those killer machines would be enough. I’m sorry, son. I need you to go back to the shelter.”

“I want to come with you.”

“No! You have to warn everyone. Tell Grandpa we saw a Mektron medium-duty BuildBot. Tell him I am going to destroy it. He’ll understand the need. Tell him, I’ll do my best to hide our presence.”

“Can you remember all that?”

Ajax nodded, but his lower lip quivered.

“I need you to be brave,” Max said. “Don’t get lost. Follow our tracks right back. Go.”

Ajax took a step away.

“Wait!” Max grabbed his son and hugged him tight. “You are a wonderful boy. I am so proud of you. Go warn everyone, and if I don’t see you again.” His voice caught in his throat, and he had to force the words out. “If I don’t see you and your mom again, always remember that I love you, Ajax. And tell your mother that I love her, too. Now, go.”

Max swatted him on the butt to get him running, and then turned to follow the robot’s footprints. A wide stride and a forefoot landing meant the machine was running, so Max ran too. He could not let the robot reach its allies. Before the collapse of civilization, the machines used wireless communication, but radio waves did not travel as far as they once did. Atmospheric turbulence and apocalyptic energy surges made wireless communications very spotty and long-range communications almost impossible.

The wind whistled through the trees as he ran as fast as he could following the robot’s trail. He caught a glimpse of the chrome and fired again, but shooting through the thick trees was almost impossible. The shot missed, and the robot hurried away.

After the first hour of pursuit, he could see the robot’s stride begin to shorten. The machine ran on battery power. Energy between charges was limited. With a little luck, the thing would just run out of power. He noticed his own stride becoming shorter as fatigue started to slow him, but images of what would happen to his family should he fail to catch the robot kept him going.

As the afternoon passed, Max realized the robot was setting its pace to his pace. If Max sped up, so did the robot. If Max slowed down, the robot did the same. The machine was matching energy expenditures, efficiently conserving its battery power to keep just far enough ahead.

As evening came, Max paused to catch his breath. If he started back now, he would likely survive, but this was the point of no return. Temperatures would plummet through the night. If he pressed on, he would freeze to death in the darkness. He looked at the robot’s footprints stretching off in the distance and looked back at his own. There wasn’t really a choice. He had to destroy the machine. If he didn’t, Mektron would learn of their existence and exterminate everything he loved.

Max ran on, sprinting to try and catch the robot. The machine responded by lengthening its own stride and keeping just ahead. At sunset, he saw the robot again. He fired and missed. The robot ran on. He maintained the pursuit, keeping a steady pace, convinced the machine must also be tiring. He’d kept it running all day. Running used more energy, than walking. The robot needed to recharge. This chase was a matter of who would run out of energy first. 

The coldness came as the sky began to dim. The chill bit through his gloves and boots. His skin burned from the cold. No one stayed out after sundown. A human could not easily survive the frigid temperatures. But neither could a robot. Depending on the condition of its batteries, Max might find the machine at any moment, shut down from power loss. That hope kept him going.

Soon, the first flurries fell. Large white flecks falling on the ground, but thankfully not enough to obscure the tracks. He pushed on, ignoring the exhaustion creeping into his muscles, knowing that his family, his father, his mother, and all the employees of Maxwell Motors were relying on him to end the threat.

As Max slipped into a delirious exhaustion, he drew on the deep resolve of humanity. This was a battle of human heart against the logical efficiency of a mechanical mind. His emotions would push him beyond the limits of human endurance. Love of his family. Hate of Mektron. The robot didn’t have emotion. The machine didn’t have the vast resolve of human existence. When its power ran out, the machine would just stop moving. Max would not let himself stop moving. He pressed on, staggering forward through the cold to save those he loved.

The snowfall increased. The tracks were filling. He tried to move faster, but his gait had become a shuffle. The cold had seeped past his arms and legs deep into his torso. Not able to feel his hands and toes, he was stumbling more than walking, falling against trees and pushing off to the next.  In his mind, he kept picturing the images of his family. Katey, his wife, who was with him in Detroit when the robot’s first rebelled. They had almost died together but had been saved, plucked from the freezing cold Detroit River by a man with a handlebar mustache. No one was going to save him now. He just needed to keep going.

Memories. Designing the shelter with his father. The birth of Ajax. Wanting more children with Katey but knowing the limits on food. One foot in front of the other. Keep walking. With just a few more steps he might find the shutdown robot. He’d put a round through its head, and then he could die knowing that he’d saved everyone he loved.

Max did not find the robot, but he did reach the end of human endurance if not resolve. He pitched forward. His face landing in the icy snow. Wanting to continue, he tried to push himself up, but his left arm collapsed, and he rolled over to his back. Human endurance had not been enough. Love and hate had both failed him in the end.

A short time later, the robot found Max. The machine towered above him. Fresh snow mounded on its head and shoulders. Its red eyes looked down on him without emotion, but Max imputed the callous cruelty into its gaze. He saw its heartless, murderous nature.

Max tried to lift his gun, slowly the barrel rose, but his fingers wouldn’t move to find the trigger. He was too cold, too exhausted, too close to death. The robot kicked his weapon away. Max wanted to scream his defiance, to curse the machine, but he was too spent to even speak.

The robot reached down and put an arm under Max’s shoulder and an arm under his thighs close to the hinge of his knee. The robot lifted him and started walking, retracing their steps back toward his shelter, toward his family.

Carried like a child, Max struggled, trying to reach the knife in his belt. If he could jam the blade into the robot’s eyes, he could destroy the silica sentient brain that governed its systems. He was so cold that he could not make his fingers grasp the hilt.

A dull heat came from the robot’s torso. A warmth that was keeping his core temperature just warm enough. Shivering in the robot’s arms, the sway of the machine walking made him sleepy. He struggled against the feeling, knowing that he needed to stay awake to fight the cold. If he gave in and slept, he would surely die.

 The sky lightened as dawn broke over the land. In the light, Max recognized the hunting area around the shelter. The murderous machine had brought him back to the spot of their first encounter.

“Why are we here?” Max asked weakly.

“You need care.”

“I won’t let you hurt my family.” He gasped out the words.

“You are in critical condition. Close to death. I have tried to warm you, but my power reserves are very low. I need to recharge.”

Max reached for the knife again, knowing that if the machine was low on energy he might have a chance to destroy it. He could not move his fingers, not yet, but the day was warming. He might still have a chance to save everyone.

Katey’s voice rang out loud and clear. “Don’t shoot! It’s carrying Max!”

“Surround it!” His father gave that order.

A dozen people from the shelter formed a ring around the robot. Katey stepped forward. They all had weapons raised.

“Shoot it!” Max cried feebly.

“Hold your fire,” Katey said, she lowered her rifle, but no one else did. To the robot, she said, “Put my husband down.”

The robot stepped forward and gently placed Max on the ground at her feet. She knelt to him but kept looking up at the machine.

“Why did you bring him here?” she asked.

“I am required to protect human life.”

Katey shook her head. “Mektron robots are programmed for human extinction.”

“Your logic is faulty. I am Mektron model LT 374. My wireless networking malfunctioned, and I did not receive the Mektron Directive update. I am compelled by my original programming to avoid the update and protect human life.”

Max’s father approached the robot with his gun still raised. With the barrel, he motioned to Harvey and Jamison, two big workers holding large hammers. “Get my son.” 

The two men complied immediately, rushing forward to lift Max, and move him to a safe distance. The robot did not interfere.

“Katey, move away from the bot,” his father said.

Katey stood, her face grim. “This robot saved Max.”

“Mektron destroyed the Earth,” said one of the workers.

“We destroyed the Earth,” Katey said. “And this robot saved my husband’s life.”

“What if he tells other robots?” the worker asked.

“Didn’t you hear it?” Katey moved close to the robot. “It’s required to protect humans. It won’t tell other robots about us. Right?”

“Your statement is correct.”

“You want us to let it go?” his father asked.

“It’s the human thing to do.”

“Don’t let it go,” Max said. “Katey, come here. Let them shoot it. You must shoot it.”

“Do not waste your ammunition. My power reserves are depleted. I will not be able to reach my recharge location.”

“Smash it with a hammer,” Max said.

Katey stared at him, giving him the look she reserved for those acting stupidly. In that gaze, he understood. The machine had gone past its point of no return to save him. The machine intended to sacrifice its own existence. He smiled at her. They had been there together when Detroit burned. They had seen the horrors of the robot rebellion, but pragmatic Katey was right. This robot, a machine that he had tried to kill, had saved his life, and that meant something in this world of violence and death.

“My wife is right,” Max said weakly.

Katey stood near the robot, ready to protect it. Max shrugged off the men supporting him and stumbled over to her side. She helped him remain standing, as he looked into the robot’s red eyes.

“LT 374, thank you for saving my life. I am sorry I tried to destroy you.” Max had to take a breath. “Please, come back to our shelter. You said you were low on power, charge yourself, and then go in peace or stay as a friend.”

The robot looked from Katey to Max. “LT 374 will stay because peace and friendship are efficient.”