Get ready for a thrilling ride into a future where robots and humans clash for control in RoboNomics, the updated and refreshed version of the 2013 sci-fi classic.
In Toronto, elementary school teacher Andrea Anderson's world crumbles when she's rep...
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The wan light of summer dawn pours through the large window on one side of the open room. It wakes me long before anyone else. I shift around and stretch along the length of the worn-out cot that I'd been assigned. My body aches and my back is stiff where the springs of the mattress stuck into it. Austin lies on the cot next to mine, his feet hanging over the end. He's still asleep. In the dim of morning, I make out the lashes that rest on his cheeks and his lips closed into a tiny, pink rosebud.
I remember when we first met. It was at a house party in an apartment of a mutual friend who lived near the university. The first thought that came into my head while we shook hands was that he was handsome.
In this moment, watching him sleep, I can't believe I ever wanted anyone else. The ghost of almost leaving him crosses my mind and with it, guilt acrid as burnt rubber. I tuck it away as best as I can, knowing that I'll drag it around with me like a child with a favorite toy.
The only way to release it would be to confess, but that won't help anything but to alleviate my conscience. And if we're going to survive the rapid-fire changes the bots have brought to the city, I need to let it go. Austin has had so many shocks lately. So much of what he believed about the world turned out to be false. I'm not about to destroy our relationship on top of everything else just because I need a confessor.
My thoughts break apart with the first heavy footfalls that cross the threshold into the gym. I twist in the cot, straining in the direction of the sound as it grows.
Then I see it. A tall security patrol bot, with its long metallic arms swinging by its sides. It weaves his way through the rows of cots. It turns repeatedly, its head arcing from side to side. Just before it spots me, I feel a modicum of relief that it doesn't look like me. It heads down the row, directly toward us.
"You can't stay here," its mechanical voice croaks as it approaches.
Austin's eyes blink open. "What's going on?" He mumbles.
Others around us shift in their sleep or stir out of it and look up at the towering machine as they blink sleep out of their eyes.
"Andrea Anderson," the bot continues. "You have been identify as a suspected accomplice to the Queen's Park bombing. You can't stay here."
"What?" Austin manages to utter the question that weighs immediately on my mind. "You can't be serious." He bolts upright on his cot.
That's right, I think. Austin has no idea.
"Austin, let's just go. It's almost morning anyway." I avoid his gaze as I pull a light shirt over the tank that serves as my undershirt and pajamas.
"Why would this... thing think that, Andrea?"
"I don't know, okay? Maybe because I there that day."
"That can't be it," his voice is fierce as his eyes bore into the side of my face. I busy myself with packing up my meager belongings. "Did someone implicate you?"
