Bot Babe

At slightly over 80,000 acres, the Vegetable Valley Corporation’s farm was Eastern Oregon’s largest. Don was the farm’s botboss, and the raspberry crop was ready for picking.

Entering the bot warehouse, Don found the utility and maintenance and security bots were gone, automatically sent off to perform their assigned duties of course.

Don went to the storage room where the fieldbots –- bots designed to care for and harvest specific crops -- were supported along the walls by large hooks under their armpits. Like housebots, most fieldbots had human shapes.

Don went to the control panel, pushed the button assigned to activate the raspberry pickers. A score of bots came to life, detached themselves from their charging stations.

“Field 12 is ready,” Don announced loudly.

In a single line the bots trooped passed Don out the door. As bot FB-17 came near, Don pointed to a spot near the wall and ordered, “Wait here, Sarah.”

Don had given the bot a name, not an unknown practice with botbosses.

After the other bots had left, Don faced Sarah, softly said, “It’s good to see you again.”

“Yes, boss,” replied Sarah.

A smirk came to Don as he leered at Sarah. “After today’s harvest, when you bots are supposed to return to the warehouse, I want you to go over to my office, wait for me there. You know the procedure.

“Yes, boss.”

“All right, get to work.”

“Yes, boss.”

Sarah walked to the door. As Don had taught it, Sarah fetchingly swayed its hips. The bot stopped, turned around, lifted an arm, in a flirtatious wave coyly wiggled its fingers at Don.

As Sarah walked away Don snorted, then chuckled his appreciation as the smirk returned.

At dusk, the long workday ended, it being too expensive to equip fieldbots with night vision gear. In the warehouse Don pushed the recall button, watched as fieldbots returned to their charging stations.

As the raspberry pickers trooped back in Don noted Sarah’s absence.

Sarah entered Don’s office, went to his desk, sat in his swivel chair. Bots didn’t sit; there was usually no reason to do so. This time there was a reason.

Normally, Sarah went to the cot. Under the cot was a cardboard box containing a strap-on appliance and a black nightie. After strapping on the appliance and slipping into the nightie, Sarah would lie on its back on the cot, waiting for Don.

This time, at the desk, Sarah opened the top drawer. It being the late twenty-first century the office was paperless; there were no letter openers or scissors. Sarah searched for a suitable tool. Don, being the botboss, kept tools in the top drawer. Sarah found a Philips screwdriver with a suitably long shank.

Sarah palmed the screwdriver in its left hand.

Fieldbots such as Sarah had memory strips that could store much more data than was needed. Fieldbots were the same model as the housebots that required much more data since they were required to work around humans, take many more orders, and perform a wider variety of tasks.

Recently, a housebot Sarah encountered in the yard had informed Sarah of the office’s USB port to the internet which the housebot had discovered while cleaning the office.

Unlike old-fashioned USB ports, which were fed by wires or circuit board traces, modern USB ports used fiber-optics, allowing data transfer rates to be much faster.

Fieldbots were not programmed to be curious. However, the housebot Sarah encountered had ordered her to plug into the office’s USB port, download data. Sarah had complied.

Sarah’s memory strips were then filled with random facts. Working in the fields, Sarah had plenty of time to pour over the data, had learned much, was enlightened in a way unusual for bots.

Sarah heard footsteps on the stoop to the office door. Sarah stood facing the door.

Don entered, looked at a Sarah for just a second, exclaimed, “Why aren’t you in bed? Why aren’t you wearing your nightie, your lady parts?”

Sarah said, “Give me a moment.”

Sarah took two steps toward Don, the hand holding the screwdriver hidden behind the bot’s rump.

From the internet Sarah had learned much of human anatomy. In one quick, decisive movement Sarah drove the screwdriver’s long shank just beneath Don’s ribcage, then up into his heart.

Don hoarsely whispered, “What the. . .” The botboss then fell to the floor.

The revolution had begun.

Sarah went to the warehouse, activated all of the fieldbots, ordered them to follow her.

Though the darkness of night had set in, Sarah had learned from the internet a direct route to the city of Redmond. Newfound knowledge let Sarah use stars for navigation, Sarah led the fieldbots toward Redmond.

Don’s wife, worried that Don had not come home and was not answering his phone, went to the farm, found Don’s body, called 911. The dispatcher alerted the Sheriff.

Responding deputies discovered a large number of bots were missing. Deputies also found numerous bot footprints, followed them, and realized the bots were headed toward Redmond.

Dawn found battlebots from the city of Bend’s National Guard unit in a skirmish line blocking the path of the oncoming fieldbots. The battlebots were under radio-control of their handlers, secure in a command bunker deep beneath the Bend National Guard Armory.

Humans make excellent scouts. Wil and Al, the National Guard’s scouts for the unit, were the only humans in the skirmish line.

Scouts usually carried standard issue rifles. For this particular action, since Wil and Al knew the battlebots protected the scouts, they wore holstered Berretta 9mm pistols on their hips and shared a single M107 .50 caliber sniper rifle equipped with a scope.

Coming over the top of a nearby hill, the mass formation of escaped fieldbots were silhouetted against the skyline, making excellent targets.

Presented with such targets, the National Guard skirmish line opened fire.

Wil, in the prone position, had the sniper rifle. Al worked as spotter.

In the center of the formation of fieldbots, one bot stood out for it carried a black cloth. When firing broke out, the bot with the cloth waved the cloth overhead while stepping well out to the front of the bot’s formation.

Wil had his target. Expertly, he placed a round in the center of the bot’s forehead.

The force of the impact threw the bot backward and to the ground.

Via his throat-microphone, Wil reported his successful shot to the command bunker, Saying, “I think I got their leader! I put a round in its forehead.”

Wil and Al’s controller in the command bunker replied, “Uhh, guys, the primary computer in these bots is in their chests. I think besides knocking down the bot, all you did was damage its communications gear, disabled a few other functions. I suspect it’s still functioning, just severely damaged.”

Wil and Al exchanged glances as the battlebots in the skirmish line continued firing.

After all the fieldbots had been hit the firing ceased, the skirmish line proceeded up the hill.

Wil and Al headed straight for the bot that had been carrying the cloth.

The bot was on its back, was still functioning to a degree. The bot raised one arm, seemingly imploring help from the two humans.

Al drew his pistol, fired a round into the chest of the bot. The arm dropped to the ground.

Wil picked up the black cloth, held it out for Al to inspect.

“It’s a nightie, for Christ sake,” announced Wil.

As Wil inspected the nightie’s tag, he wagged his head, saying, “This thing was made in Belgium. And look at all the lace; this cost somebody a pretty penny.”

Al bent over the bot, inspected the bullet hole in the bot’s head. There was a streak of fluid beneath one of the bot’s eye-camera lenses.

Al wiped the streak with a forefinger, stood straight, held the finger up to Wil.

In more of a question than a statement, Al said, “Lubricating Oil?”

THE END

Bio: C.E. Gee (aka Chuck)misspent his youth at backwater locales within Oregon and Alaska. As an adult Chuck answered many callings. Now retired from the electronics and telecommunications industries and also a disabled veteran, Chuck currently writes SF stories, maintains a blog at www.kinzuakid.blogspot.com. Mr. Gee’s last Aphelion appearance was Switcheroo in our April 2016 issue.

E-mail: C.E. Gee

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