A short story about robots coming back from war to their hometown. |
The Saviour Strange, horrible robots were walking in the night town. Their faces were terribly deformed, dark and impenetrable, full of sharp edges, shining in the moon light. They were entering the houses quietly, and in complete silence they were browsing their empty internals. They were searching for what seemed to be lost forever. They were looking for life. For their creators. They were searching for those, who sent them in war against their neighbours, telling them to win at all costs, just two days ago. How they commanded, it happened. Robots desolated the neighbouring town and didn't leave a single brick in it's original position. But they had no idea that few moments before they finished their terrible task, the people of the attacked town released death in the air. A death more terrifying and destroying, than anything else. The death took a vengeance for them. A perfect, magnificently needless vengeance. Robots, returning to their hometown from the war campaign, found nothing but abandoned streets and empty houses. They began searching. They had to find at least a single person they would announce their victory to. In their conscientious search mission, they were examining the most distant, hidden and obscure corners of the town. They were breaking down doors and entering dark cellars, found their way into a graveyard, where they found several cold bodies in the morgue, trying to bring them back to life. No effect. One of them got lucky after a long searching. In the internals of a cellar, hidden many meters underground, he heard a damped cry behind a pile of wooden trimmings. He bent down and beheld a little girl, about four years old, laying in glomerule, weeping quietly. He grabbed her clumsily - after all, he was created rather for killing and destruction - the robot clenched her in his arms and carried her out. He whistled few songs he knew from the people to her during it, clumsily as well. It had a miraculous effect on the child. It calmed down and slowly began to recover from the horror of the terrible days spent in darkness. And when the robot carried the girl out of the cellar and the sun touched their eyes, she smiled a little. "What to do with her now?" thought the robot. "Nobody anywhere, to give a word of advice. The best thing to do is to tell her the message and leave." And so he started to interpret the news about the conquest of their neighbouring town and his metallic voice echoed with the empty street. But the child only stared at him uncomprehendingly and probably also got scared by his creaking, for the girl began to cry again. "What now?" the robot wondered. Then the saviour thought came in. He remember how once, a long time ago, he saw a big person, laying on his back and throwing a child in air with his both hands. A child exactly like the one in robot's arms. That baby was laughing as crazy, so why not try it. The war robot layed on his back, with a notable thud, and grabbed the child into his paws. When he threw her in the air for the first time, the child was still weeping, but slowly her face was lightening up and the higher the robot threw her, the more she laughed and whooped. "Good idea I had," the robot commended himself. In that moment his hands, more used to killing than playing with children, guessed the distance wrongly and the little girl flew between them, landing on his angulate face. She made a long moaning sound, tugged herself and stopped moving completely. Diminutive drops of blood began to stream down the robot's face, and it looked as if he wept red tears. |