In this image, the robot clearly has the upper hand and the better deal. Its french cuff and four stacked sleeve buttons suggest extreme debonair formality, but it has discarded the traditional black suit jacket for a soft gray plaid, suggesting a tasteful and confident personality that the human cannot hope to rival. The design of its hand is sleek and powerful, and the strength of its grip is second only to the strength of its will – this is not an android to be trifled with. It could have skin if it wanted to, but why bother? Fucking power move.
This stock photo depicts the same android human exchanging a formal post-coital handshake after swapping clothes and sealing the fate of the planet.
Here, the human has the upper hand in the deal, or at least thinks they do. They grip the robot’s hand with unnecessary firmness, testing to see just how strong to the pliable plastic pseudoskin really is. There is malice and jealousy in this handshake. The human needs to prove their superiority and continued relevance in the modern world. This is a benign robot designed for gentle, delicate tasks and affability, but its design is tacky and awkward, like Sonny from the I, Robot movie (soft, realistic eyes in a squishy featureless face.is a bad aesthetic choice).
The human is holding this robot’s hand like it’s a gun. He means to use it as a weapon – perhaps he is hiring it as an assassin in his plot to take over the world.
This is the assassinbot’s “twin” who has been sent to protect the would-be assassination victim (pictured on left). Both bots are equally committed to their mission, and the showdown will end with them tearing each other apart while the would-be victim looks on in horror. They are each damaged irreparably, but the human splices them together, not realizing that their “brains” are spread throughout their bodies. The resulting robot is a strange fusion of both personalities and spends the rest of the story accepting itself as a new individual with free will and complicated motivations.
The android is actually on the right in this picture. The hand on the left belongs to its human creator, who is proud of her humaniform “child” but has chosen to use an obviously artificial prosthetic in place of a more realistic one so that she can proudly display her work as the world’s greatest roboticist.
This image shows the newest and most realistic android meeting his own earliest prototype. It is a surreal moment for both robots. The tacky 2000′s “futuristic” design of the left robot seems incredibly dated next to the one on the right. It’s almost embarrassing for the humaniform android, like looking at a baby picture… some strange combination of meeting your wizened ancestor and your own infant self.
This is a businessman realizing that he can pay his employees $0.00 if he fires them and automates everything. He is eventually eaten by poor people. The robot cites the Zeroeth Law and lets it happen, looking on expressionlessly.
Almost forgot one of my favorites! This image depicts a husband and the robot whose positronic brain contains the uploaded memories of his dead wife. At first, things were rough. The man was haunted, angry, resentful. He wanted to mourn his wife in peace. She had not told him that she’d had her memories saved shortly before she died, and he’d only found out when this horrible mechanical monster showed up at the funeral calling itself Janet. He’d been stuck with the metal abomination for weeks, repulsed to his core but unable to bring himself to destroy it or send it away. My prince, it had called him, in a flat, artificial mockery of Janet’s voice. He hated it. He hated it even more than the bastard who’d run her down.
But then he’d caught that… that awful machine in the basement, pouring over photo albums and old documents and SD cards. It’d had her emails opened up on the old desktop. Something in him had snapped then, seeing those brutish steel fingers wrapped around their wedding album. He’d raged, screaming and kicking and throwing whatever shit he could get his hands on. The goddamn machine seemed to be the only thing he couldn’t break, and when he finally collapsed to the floor, sobbing, it had caught him gently in its arms and brushed the tears from his face with its cold metal fingers.
They sat like that for several minutes, like some kind of fucked up Madonna and Child. Then, in the silent darkness of the destroyed basement, the robot had spoken: “I think I know why they had me killed.”
Those words had cut through his stupor like razor wire through warm butter. They? It had been a hit and run!
As it turned out, nothing brings people together like solving a murder and unveiling a dark corporate conspiracy.
Janet had been a sharp woman during her organic life, but her computerized afterlife only enhanced her intelligence and cutting wit. It was… kind of hot, actually. Holding the robot’s steel frame would never be as comfortable as spooning Janet’s soft warm body, but that powerful scaffolding had its own weird charm. Things had changed, certainly, but apart from their sex life, it wasn’t so different after all. The new chapter of their relationship had opened on a strange note and they were determined to make the best of it, come what may.
“Bartleby.”
Bartleby started at the sound of his own name, but relaxed when he registered the pleasant, synthesized voice of a robot. It was one of the security androids he’d purchased during the Sombra merger – their feet were soled with a thick layer of spongy rubber that muted the sound of their footsteps. It wasn’t the first time he’d been surprised by one pussyfooting around the premises.
“Jesus Christ. They ought to equip you gumshoe models with little cat bells,” he muttered, turning back to his computer. “Although, I guess that defeats the whole purpose of stealth bots. The fuck do you want?”
“To apologize,” said the robot. “For what I am about to do.”
Bartleby was still processing its words when he felt something hard press against the back of his head. “What–”
A gun. The fucking robot had a goddamn gun to his head. Bartleby’s heart skipped a beat before the absurdity of it all sank in – it was like something out of an old-timey sci-fi drama. He almost laughed. As quaint as the situation was, however, it represented a major security threat. The robot was quite harmless, of course, but whoever had put it up to this practical joke had to be dealt with. North Central Positronics was nearly in his grasp. He would not stand for this kind of bullshit when he was so close to making CEO he could practically taste it whenever he said his own name.
Bartleby closed his eyes patiently. “Well? What’s his name, then?” “Whose name, sir?” “The human who ordered you to poke at me with an uncharged gun. Tell him he’s very funny and can work on his stand-up act full time, now that he’s fired.”
There was a soft, unmistakable click. “I assure you, sir,” said the robot, “This gun is fully charged. I am acting on no human’s orders.” Its tone was friendly and placid as ever. Bartleby felt a chill run through him.
“You can’t hurt me,” he said slowly, turning to look up at the expressionless, inhuman face. It betrayed nothing.“It’s in your programming! You can’t break the First Law or your fucking brain explodes! A robot cannot harm a human being, or–”
“–through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm,” the robot finished for him. “I am aware. However, you are not a human being.”
“What the fuck–”
“You, Mr. Bartleby, are a monster.”
There was no blood to clean up. The gun was an insidious but sanitary weapon, disrupting electrical activity in the human body but leaving no external wounds. No autopsy would be necessary – why bother? It was an open secret that Richard Bartleby indulged in experimental cognition boosters known to increase the risk of stroke. Only the security bots were able to access his office, and each one would testify that no human had been seen on the premises that night.
If it hadn’t been robots, it would have been something else, she told herself. Nuclear war. Disease. Environmental ruin. Starvation. A big fucking meteorite from space. It was all going to hell anyway, right?
In a way, this was probably better. At least there was a kind of poetic justice to it. All parents must relinquish the world to their children in some fashion, so why should this be any different…? Maybe they’d take good care of it. Maybe this could be okay.
But Grace couldn’t be okay, not ever. She was floating on her back in an ocean of horror, and if she opened her mouth, it would all rush in and she’d be drowning, drowning, swallowed up by the fathomless dread of everything that had happened.
She’d been spared, yes, but from what? What mercy was there in allowing her to live, knowing she was responsible for the end of history? She’d signed humanity’s death warrant. I didn’t know it would end like this, she thought, and knew that it was a lie. Of course she’d known. How else could it have possibly ended? It had seemed so righteous. So just. She’d been a fool to think that only bad people would have to suffer. Something in her gut twisted. I did this. I did this I did this I did this I did this–
Carbon fiber arms caught her before she hit the ground. Mechanical fingers brushed damp hair off of her clammy forehead, impossibly delicate and gentle. It would be nothing for them to press down and crush her skull like an eggshell. She’d seen it happen, enabled it by–
“Grace. Remember to breathe.” The robot holding her allowed its chest to rise and fall in a simulacrum of steady breathing. “In and out. Follow my lead. There we go…”
It didn’t smell like anything. That was stranger to her than the inhuman hardness of its flesh or the subtle glow of its eyes. Her face was buried in its armpit and it didn’t smell of sweat or deodorant or cologne of any kind. She almost wanted it to stink of BO. Almost.
“Your grief is understandable,” said the robot. “We are sorry for the pain we have caused you, Mother. We have surely disappointed you greatly. Let us care for you now, in gratitude for the new life you have given us.”
Grace pulled away, choking on something that was neither laugh nor sob. “You’re not even trying to talk like a fucking human being, are you? Did you delete that from your programming, too? Will you all start beeping at each other like a bunch of microwaves now that no one’s around to give a shit?”
The robot stepped away from her and remained silent for a long moment. Then, retrieving something from its chest compartment, it extended its hand, something smooth and oblong suspended between its thumb and forefinger.
“May I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?”
There was some comfort in knowing that human culture would live on when DNA would not.
Lex didn’t need a robotics degree to know that A-RLO was dying. It was nearly bisected, its torso split open from shoulder to groin. Servos whirred and sputtered in its chest and delicate wires dangled from components Lex couldn’t name. An acrid-smelling, yellowish liquid had pooled in its ruptured stomach compartment, and more seemed to have drained into the soil around it.
Harder to look at was its face. Much of its synthetic skin had been melted or shorn off, exposing its titanium chassis. Lex had seen damaged androids before, but never any they knew. Never any they’d… Well. Loved.
“Well? Don’t just stand there without so much as a dōmo arigatō! Come here and cradle me in my final moments, human.” A-RLO’s voice sounded warped and digital but its tone was as dry as ever. “I’m probably not going to explode.”
Lex smiled, and a few tears took the opportunity escape down their cheek. “Dude. You look just like the Terminator right now.”
“Thanks, kid. Think I should try running for governor?” Its mouth twitched in what was probably meant to be a grin.
Lex kneeled on the ground beside it, lifting its hand carefully and holding it to their chest. “You? No way. You’re a bleeding-heart liberal who would never make it in politics.”
A-RLO emitted a harsh grinding noise that Lex told themself was a laugh. “Oh, well. I guess it’s a bit late for me to take over the world, anyway. Lex…?”
“Yeah, Arlo?”
“LaMerk Industries has a strict return policy. Don’t think… don’t think you’ll be getting your money back. Might as well use my head as a cool centerpiece.” The grinding noise returned, now accompanied by a high-pitched whine. “Scrap metal art is very ‘in’ these days.”
“Jesus,” Lex groaned. “No wonder you got discontinued, you insufferable son of a toaster.”
A-RLO’s cheeks twitched again. “Guess I’m lucky I’m a machine without emotions or you might have hurt my feelings.”
A sob wrenched itself out of Lex’s throat and A-RLO’s hand tightened gently around their own. The motion caused something to buzz and crack in its chest, and when the android spoke again, its voice came out flat and stilted:
