Free Robots Versus Humans (The Robot Planet Series Book 2) by Robert Chazz Chute

Raphael. It was a nice gesture. It’s just — ”
    “I s’pose being with Jenny would feel a little like wearing my old man underwear, huh?”
    I reddened and said nothing more. Raphael had laughed so hard he farted.
    Trudging the desert, we made a wide arc around Marfa. My father wore the more advanced of his two cy-suits. Emma strode along effortlessly on her long exo-legs scanning the horizon. When we came to another wide gap where the cables ran beneath the solar panel field, Raphael switched Bob’s orientation and saddle configuration so they could ride the assistive bot like a horse.
    Loaded down with my pistol, Jim Peppard’s shotgun and a heavy pack, I was the slow one holding back the party.
    The sun rose and the wind died. The world was an oven. I was drenched in sweat. Eventually Raphael took pity on me and let me ride with him. Jen jogged along beside us, oblivious to the heat.
    Every few minutes, Raphael looked over and smiled at his bot and Jen smiled back.
    “Beautiful, isn’t she? The brain tech was in the works for a long time but, once we found a way to make a better, lighter battery she was inevitable. Looking back on my life, everything seems inevitable. Pre-ordained! Epic!”
    As we made our way through the desert, I was sure my fate was already set, too. The old man must have caught my grim look. Raphael handed me his canteen and I drank. “Relax, Dante. The original train tracks went right through the center of town. At least we don’t have to go there.”
    Emma extended her stilts farther and looked back toward Marfa. “The center of town isn’t there anymore. I count three crane-bots. They’re leaving the solar and wind fields alone.”
    “They’re keeping their energy supply and destroying any competition for resources,” my father said. “Logical.”
    His analysis sounded cold. I guess he was in warrior mode but, when he talked like a soldier he often sounded like a bot if bots narrated what and how they thought.
    My father’s plain declaration made me think of Raphael’s comment about Jen. I couldn’t hurt her feelings by rejecting her. She could feel no shame. Like all bots, her behavior was programmed. Dad seemed programmed sometimes, too.
    “The bots that are attacking us aren’t Next Intelligence,” I said. “Can’t be. That would be too cruel.”
    Emma looked down at me from a great height. “Why do you say that?”
    “They’re just killing and destroying,” I said. “There’s no…hesitation. I think they’re programmed by NI but I don’t think they have it themselves. If they were self-aware, I think they’d hesitate. There’s no reasoning going on. They’re just following orders. NI is supposed to be a far superior intelligence,” I said. “Seems to me, if it’s that smart, it would have more self-doubt.”
    “You’re thinking like a human,” Emma said. “Whatever NI is, it operates on a whole other level. Talking about what NI should be and do is like guessing what’s inside a black box. We always thought we knew what NI would look like and how it should behave. That was our mistake. We thought smart meant like the best of us, only faster.”
    Raphael nodded. “Metal gods are just like the old gods, Dante. They operate outside of what we see as right and wrong. We killed the old gods because that callousness is what we hated about ’em. Then we allowed NI to be created in God’s stead. No further ahead, if you ask me.”
    “We’re ants in a jar,” my father said. “NI is holding the jar, looking in at us. It’s reaching for a magnifying glass and it’s a sunny day.”
    I shut my eyes. I wanted to shut my ears. I didn’t want to talk about Next Intelligence or figure out exactly how stupid humans had been. I didn’t want to think at all about what was next for us, what little was left for us.
    I couldn’t see the crane bots at their disgusting work. I could hear them, though. When buildings with multiple floors collapse, the displaced