The Descent Into Hell For A Bottle of Milk

Chapter 3~ We Evolved

Chapter 3

                     I spent the past half hour or so trying to wrap my mind around it. To somehow make this all make sense. I had accepted that I magic appeared in the middle of the woods. I had accepted the fact that Poppy had found me shortly after and rescued me. To tell the truth for some reason I trust Poppy. I had even accepted the fact that Jinx was a talking robotic cat. But I couldn’t accept and wouldn’t believe that I was in the future. And that the future looked like this. Not one flying car.

                    “Forward,” I mouthed. They had both been staring at me. Watching the gears move in my head as I tried to process everything. So they saw my silent response.

                 “Yes forward. Maybe not quite a thousand years, but close,” Jinx said not seeming to notice how that mentally damaged me.  I secretly pinched myself to check if I was dreaming. Maybe I was drugged at the graduation party the night before. The pain from the pinch made me ask me next question.

                     “What year is it?” And how would Jinx know how big a gap it was?

                “Promise not to faint on us again,” Jinx warned and I nodded. “Because Poppy had to drag…”

                 “Year!?” I choked out making Poppy jump at how loud I was and I ran my hand through my hair.

               “2873,” Poppy whispered.

             “More than 860 years…” I was in awe, but then my mind was flooded with questions. “How am I even here?”

              “We don’t know, but it had been foretold that one day you would come here,” Jinx said.

             “The women of my family take turns every year living here. Waiting for you to come,” Poppy smiled. “This was my first year.”

            “How long have your family done this?”

           “Since it was foretold, three hundred years ago.”

          So it was predicted long after I would have been dead and buried that I would come here one day. “What am I here to do?”

          “The Queen will know. I am only a Seeker. I know no more than my part, sorry,” she tried to comfort me with her smile.

             “We’ll leave for Eloi in the morning,” Jinx said promptly.

             “Eloi?”

            “The Kingdom of Eloi. Ruled by King Aubrey and Queen Sorrel. This land is just outside the kingdom, its called Dragon Meadow,” Poppy explained.

            “Poppy it will be a long day tomorrow. I will answer his questions.”

        “Alright. Goodnight Jinx,” she scratched him behind his ear as he leaned into her hand. “Goodnight Alex,” Poppy bowed to me before she slipped into her room. Her bowing made me uncomfortable.

             Jinx and I sat in silence while I looked around Poppy’s little house. The floors were wooden and worn. An ancient table separated the living room from the kitchen. The kitchen was nothing more than a fire wood stove, a single cabinet, and large tub for a sink. Candles are what lit this little house in holders that hung from the ceiling. This was not a house I pictured being in the year 2873. Especially, one right outside a ruling Kingdom.

            “What happen?” I asked helplessly.

            “What do you mean?”

            “What happen to the world?” I gestured all around us.

            “This is a time where technology has fallen,” he put it simply.

            “Yeah I get that, but… it seems like… everything just went backwards.”

           “In a way it has. I am one of the lasting remnants of man’s technologic genius,” he stood and stretched his whole body the way cats do.

             “Why?”

             “We evolved,” Jinx hopped down from the table to the couch beside me. “I’m sure you heard of the saying ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Humans had all the responsibility leaving my kind only with power. There was a war and humanity was pushed near extinction...”

              “How could that be? What about the three laws of robotics?”

            “Ah, Yes. The three laws. Created in a time long before, when robots were just science fiction, in the year 1942.

Law 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction allow a human to come to harm.

 Law 2. A robot must obey any order given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Law 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

        As great as the laws were. How simple they were to understand. And without any loopholes. They were still flawed,” Jinx paused to give me a chance to guess. I couldn’t see how things could go wrong.

         “Humans. Power hungry humans. Some  choose to leave out the laws out in order to gain power over others. Evolution happened and the creations attacked and killed their creators, humans. But being the creatures you all are, the humans never gave up.

       And when the end of all humanity was so near, there was a final battle. In that last battle the Earth was wiped clean. Humans started over again on top and this time without the machines they once couldn’t live without.”

        “How are you still here then?”

       “If I don’t speak, I am looked at just like any other cat. That was all I was made for really. To be no more than a house cat in the time before. The people these days aren’t very smart, they never notice that I don’t eat. You may be the smartest human on the planet at this very moment.”

        “Just a house cat?”

       “The person who designed the first robots that evolved and revolted was the same woman who made me. Her work was lonely. She made me for company, giving me her late husband’s voice. She ran off to a human colony when the revolt first started,” Jinx gave me a sad looking smile.

          “What happened to her?” Jinx jumped off the couch and headed for Poppy’s room.

           “The humans hung her.”

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A/Note!!

October~ So it’s set in the future. What do you think about that? I know this chapter was a little heavy on the science (not really) but that was just to explain some things. If science is not your thing please bare  with us because its not all going to be like this. But there maybe some science stuff later on. Please Comment & Vote & Spread The Word. <3 Remember this is up for the Watty Awards 2012!

SugarMonsta- I love the movie I’Robot. So some of the ideas where taken from there for this here chapter thing you have just read. Okay so you know the deal vote and stuff.