H.A.I.U.

Prologue

         The sun was setting, casting a warm orange glow through the window. But Monica was not warm. She was scared. She covered her ears and closed her eyes. She didn't want to watch this. No, she didn't.

But the robot wrenched the four year old's hands from her ears on command from the ones who were taking her mother. "Listen, so you won't forget." the robot said in its fake voice. Monica screamed as tears rolled down her face.

"Mommy!" she cried out, and the robot placed its cold, metallic hand over her mouth. Monica shrank away, or at least tried to. Her mother fell to her knees as the other robot Taser-ed her. "In accordance of the Cyborg Draft, you are now needed to help make the world a better place. It is a great honor to give your body to save others. Do not struggle, or we will have to take you by force." the robot repeated, and on the screen where its face was turned red. "Taking by force as of now." it said, and clamped a hand over Monica's mother's wrist.

"Monica, stay safe. Mommy will be back!" she cried, then turned to her husband, who had been knocked unconscious. "Stay well, my love!" she said right before the robots turned on the hover outside. Monica dropped to the floor as the two police bots left. "Mommy! Mommy, come back!" she screamed as the bots threw her mother into the hover and flew off to the Lab.

Her nursemaid bot crouched beside her, processor whirring. "I am programed to make you happy. I detect you are distressed. Can you please tell me why?" it asked, the pixelated face blinking.

"Mommy." Monica whispered, and the nursemaid bot picked Monica up. "Oh, your mother? She is helping the greater good. Besides, maybe she will be the first to survive the robotic brain implant. Though thousands have died, I am sure she will be the first. She could change the world. Be happy, little Monica. Are you happy?"

"You promise mommy will be back?" she asked, sniffing. The nursebot's face glitched momentarily before it said, "The chances of her survival after the recent updates to the medical system is fifty one percent. More than likely."

"So I will see mommy again?"

"More than likely. And she will be smarter, much smarter. Just like me."

"Like you?"

"Yes."

But the things was, nursemaid bots couldn't feel emotions. Neither could any other robots. And with the new brain implants--that not a single person has survived--neither could those with them.

Monica jerked up, heart pounding. Tears coated her pillow, and she was shaking. The memory still haunted her, every night. And every night, she woke up without a mother. It's been twelve years since, and yet it still felt raw, like yesterday.

But maybe that was the black eye she had talking.

Monica sat up in bed, and shuffled to the bathroom. The lights turned on dim, and the bathroom spoke. "How may I assist you?"

"I need to replace my bandages."

"Which ones?"

"The ones from that blow torch last night. They still hurt." Monica growled. She hated robots. So did her father. But keeping the bathroom as a robot was essential, because every night Monica came back home with burns and bruises and cuts and broken limbs, and the hospital was swarming with robots.

The robotic arms behind the mirror came out and began to take the wrappings from her forearm. She hissed in pain, it still burned. When the bandages fell away, hey revealed black charred skin, and red blisters around. She clenched her jaw as anti-bacterial spray was put on her arm and new bandages wrapped around.

She left the bathroom without saying thank you. She didn't have to, either. It couldn't hold a grudge. The bathroom could hook up to the internet, download music, google jokes to understand things, but there was never really any actual emotion. It didn't know how to feel. It was the same as it was twelve years ago. A hundred. Two hundred. Honestly, Monica didn't know the exact number robots were invented to take all human jobs.

She slid into bed, and looked at the robot convention poster on her wall. Three more days, she thought.

Three more days until the world would change.

If it weren't for me.