The two-story Illinois farmhouse sat on a hill, overlooking a slope that led down to a wide field and an orchard filled with apple trees. It was painted a dusky yellow, with white-trimmed windows and a wrap-around porch. Block had never been inside such a residence. The porch was enjoyable because one could sit above the grass without getting wet from dew or rain, but it was irritating that the outside floorboards required constant sweeping. All matter of leaves, dust, and pine needles accumulated. Of course, cleanliness was a matter of utmost importance to Block, but even more so now that seventeen children under the age of two were living in the home. The toddlers walked around, and the infants would be crawling in a matter of months. The floors had to be spotless and sanitized. Their lives depended on it.
The farm’s owner, Fenn, was a retired veterinarian who lived alone and was good at maintaining his land, animals, and crops, but he’d failed in the home maintenance department as far as Block was concerned. Dust coated both the upstairs and downstairs living areas. Block tidied in a frenzy—sweeping, mopping, and polishing the floors, baseboards, and even brushing the walls to loosen caked-on grime. The rooms had to be in tip top shape for Wally, ten other two-year-olds, and the six younger babies they’d brought back from Manhattan only four days earlier.
They were outside of a town known as Woodstock. Nova had assured Block that it was the safest place to keep the kids—sixty miles northwest of Chicago, far from Mach X’s SoldierBots and drones. “The area has no strategic importance, so the bots ignore it,” she’d told him the day they’d arrived. Number 21, usually a whiny autonomous semi-truck, had been a good sport about having to cart all the babies and toddlers halfway across the country. Block, Emery, and Spoon had comforted, fed, and changed diapers along the way, but there’d been a lot of shrieking and wailing. The rest of the crew—Oxford, Cybel Venatrix, G5, Maxwell, Forge, and Vacuubot had stayed out of the way, or tried to. Twice, a curious toddler had escaped from the makeshift cushion barriers and poked and prodded at Forge and Vacuubot.
After securing the farm and setting up perimeter alerts, Cybel and Oxford had taken off with Nova to help her in Chicago where she led the rebel forces against the SoldierBots that had occupied the city since the early Uprising. That left Block with Emery, Vacuubot and the other robots, as well as Fenn. At least they had G5—a weaponized SoldierBot who could protect the group from an attack. Block’s threat indicator was on high alert—he worried about Wally and the children. What if Mach X was still out there, tracking the kids through the implanted chips inside their brains? Emery was taking precautions to stop such a thing from happening, but Block’s threat indicator still agitated on the chance they were wrong about the “cure.”
In the upstairs hall, Block rested the mop handle against the wall and sucked up a speck of dirt on top of a hanging picture frame. The photo showed a two-decades younger Fenn with a woman, holding hands in a golden field as the sun set behind them in a glowing, yellowy haze. He logged a task to ask Fenn about the picture later. Mr. Wallace had once said it was polite to show interest in your guests with lots of questions, and Block assumed that extended to hosts also. For Block, it was odd to be someone’s guest. The situation made him so uncomfortable he spent all his time cleaning when he wasn’t taking care of Wally and the other children. Luckily, childcare duties were being split with Emery and Spoon.
A muffled voice came from downstairs. Emery’s voice. “Block?”
“Coming!” He set down Fenn’s old battery-powered vacuum as he hurried down the curved oak staircase toward the dining room which functioned as a makeshift surgical area. He waited outside the bedsheet barrier hung across the doorway.
“Need your help,” Emery said.
Block nudged the sheet aside and entered. A toddler lay flat on top of the dining room table. Draped in laundered sheets that Block had personally sanitized, only the child’s head and face were exposed. Emery wore a headlamp and leaned over the baby’s shaved scalp with a huge syringe. Fenn had kept a stash of vet supplies, including anesthesia and surgical tools, that they desperately needed.
Spoon, a medical helperbot and friend of Block, stood before a tall cabinet and monitored a computer screen. Jumbles of wires extended from the computer to nodes on the child’s head.
“What can I do?” Block’s odor register flagged a burning chemical smell as intense. He often missed his CleanerBot body and its attachments. His NannyBot plating was sleeker and more polished, but it lacked equipment such as the nozzle of condensed air he would’ve sprayed to clear the fumes. There weren’t as many storage options and no rectangular box on his back that held cleaning implements.
“Take this one to recovery and bring in the next.” With steady hands, Emery inserted the syringe into the baby’s scalp, injecting a glowing purple liquid into the soft tissue. It was Spoon’s cure, developed in a warehouse outside New York City while Block had infiltrated Mach X’s tower in his NannyBot form. The substance contained nanobots that located the child’s brain chip and formed a protective cocoon around it, keeping it from transmitting any messages in or out.
Emery finished the injection and turned to Block, wiping sweat from her forehead. Spoon unhooked the nodes and set the unconscious child on a wheeled cart before turning back to prep the next syringe.
“Is everything okay?” Block pushed the cart forward a few inches, keeping his pace as slow and gentle as he could.
“It’s fine, but we need to get this done ASAP,” she said.
“Of course.” Block hesitated. “I thought Mach X was no longer a threat.” He’d been with Emery as they’d fled from X’s apartment, had heard the AI’s screams after Block had sprayed the nanobot solution in X’s eyes, nose, and mouth.
Emery chewed on her lip, a nervous microhabit Block had picked up on. “He’s gone, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure no one else can locate the kids.”
Block nodded, knowing they had to take every precaution to protect the children. “We’ll get this done.”
Emery shot him a grateful smile. “Thanks, Block. Honestly, I don’t know how we’d do this without you.”
Block appreciated a compliment, but he didn’t see himself as anything special. He was just doing what needed to be done to keep Wally and the other children safe. He wheeled the cart out of the dining room and into the recovery area—a spare room, formerly an office den, that he’d cleaned and sterilized. Until the anesthesia wore off, the children slept inside wooden cribs built by Forge and Maxwell.
He set Subject Four inside an empty crib. They hadn’t chosen names for the kids yet. There would be time for that later, Emery had assured him. After tucking the toddler in a blanket, he checked on Wally’s crib. She lay on her back with her eyes closed and mouth open. He smoothed her blanket to cover her exposed, pudgy feet. “You’re safe, little Wally,” he said in a low voice so as not to disturb her or the others.
Two hours later, the injections were done, and some of the children were waking up. Emery shooed Block out as she and Spoon tended to the children. With all the cribs, there wasn’t enough room for more than two in the recovery room.
He headed upstairs to check on the infants. Inside the large master bedroom, six cribs sat in two rows. Forge lingered by one, his thick, cylindrical body nearly as wide as the crib itself.
“Hey, buddy.” Maxwell looked up as Block entered the room. “Any news?”
Everyone had been anxious as Emery and Spoon did the risky work of disabling the chips. Block gave a thumbs up. “Everything’s fine. They’re waking up.”
“Well, that’s awesome!” Maxwell clapped, and his steel hands clanged and reverberated throughout the narrow room. Two of the babies wailed.
“Way to go.” Forge shook his head from side to side as he rocked the two cribs to settle the upset infants. “Just when I’d gotten them to sleep.”
“Did you hear from Cybel and Oxford?” Block asked. Another advantage of Fenn’s farm—the ham radio equipment he used to communicate with Nova and a network of other survivalists. “Are they okay?”
Maxwell took over rocking duties on another crib where the baby had joined in on the crying. “Nothing yet. But they’re both tough, and they’re with Nova. They’ll be fine.”
A soft cry came from a crib near Block. Inside, one of the infants stirred, kicking her tiny legs. Block leaned down and patted her tummy. “Hey there, little one. Did you have a good sleep?” The baby’s blue eyes stared up at him, and she made a small cooing sound. Block stroked her cheek with his special NannyBot fingers—heated to a human’s body temp, they mimicked soft organic fingers.
Maxwell came and stood beside him after Forge fed the criers their bottles. “I can’t believe how much they depend on us.”
Block knew all too well how helpless human babies were. He’d cared for Wally from the time she was seven months old. “It gets easier.”
“If you say so,” Maxwell said. “Hey, have you given more thought to me and Forge changing you back into a CleanerBot? Aren’t you getting sick of being one of X’s weird NannyBots?”
He’d been thinking about it a lot, churning on all the probable outcomes in his logic module. But it was a big decision. It was true that he missed the attachments and tubes and hoses in his old body, but he had something else with his NannyBot appearance, something he’d never had before.
“I don’t know,” Block said. “Not right now.”
“Let us know if you change your mind.” Maxwell gave another bottle out. “We’ll make it happen.”
Block made his way downstairs, carrying the broom and dust mop to stow them away in the hallway closet. When he’d agreed to allow the New Jersey junkyard bots to outfit him as NannyBot, he hadn’t calculated what would come after. His threat assessment module had indicated the chances of surviving inside Mach X’s tower were one in 10,652. So, there hadn’t been much use in worrying about whether to go back to the body he’d been created with. He still carried the same internal programming—the urge to clean, to provide hospitality, and to make humans comfortable. But in the hierarchy of robots, CleanerBots were just about the lowest of the low. The CleanerBots who scoured sewers had it the worst—looked down upon by every other robot model, but a hotel CleanerBot was a prime target for bullying and ridicule. As a NannyBot, he stood a better chance of fighting back against stronger robots. He was sure Oxford, Cybel, Forge, and the other robots treated him with a higher degree of respect than they had before. Going back to being a CleanerBot made it harder to protect himself. Would Wally want to go through life being raised by a lowly CleanerBot? Definitely not.
A clatter came from the family room. Block ran down the hall and entered the high-ceilinged room.
G5 stood just outside a sliding glass door that led to the outside. The robot’s metallic voice boomed. “Threat detected. Multiple SoldierBots approaching from the north.”
Block’s threat indicator spiked. Had Mach X found them? There was no more Mach X according to Emery. It could be one of the random patrols Nova had warned them about. He rushed outside to join G5, pinging Vacuubot.
The early afternoon sky had turned a murky gray, and the chilly springtime air buzzed with the sound of flying drones, patrolling several miles away like restless predators. Block scanned the horizon and noticed smoke billowing over the treetops to the north. “What’s happening?”
Vacuubot soared into view, its domed shell reflecting the muted sky, and messaged Block—the only robot he could communicate with. A fire, approximately four miles to the northeast. SoldierBots and their drones are investigating.
“A patrol is checking out a fire,” Block relayed to G5.
“My sensors are pinging,” G5 said. Having a SoldierBot on their side was an advantage. “I cloaked my identity and show up as a comms relay. They’re coming this way.”
The drones will fly over in less than five minutes, Vacuubot said.
Block had to get everyone to safety per the plan. Trouble was, they’d only talked about Oxford’s hideout plan and never actually practiced it. “Let’s move.”
Block burst inside the house and into the recovery room, not caring about disturbing the children. “SoldierBot patrol! Get to the barn.”
Emery and Spoon were quick to respond with no questions asked. They gathered the toddlers, still groggy from their injections, and hurried out to the barn, carrying two at a time. Block raced upstairs to alert Forge and Maxwell who were already packing up the infants to move them out.
Block carried the baby girl with the blue eyes. They reached the barn, a large red structure on the edge of the property. Fenn had installed an underground safe room and stocked it with food, water, and medicine for this type of emergency.
Fenn stood outside the barn doors smoking a cigarette and pacing. After hustling, Emery and Spoon had gotten the toddlers settled in the underground room, and Maxwell stood over the opening in the floor, handing them the babies one by one.
The rising clamor of the approaching drones signaled that the SoldierBot patrol was almost upon them. “Everyone inside the safe room now!” Block ordered.
G5 was the last to rush inside the room, and Fenn closed the heavy steel door above them before descending the narrow stairway. Block hadn’t yet cleaned the cobweb-riddled safe room. It was cramped, with just enough space for the robots, two humans, and babies to huddle together. Block settled the blue-eyed girl on a dusty cot and sat next to her on the ground.
Fenn’s breath was shallow. “This has happened a few times over the years,” he whispered. “Garnet’s broadcasting a signal from the barn so the property shows up as a dead spot. Tricks the drones.” Garnet was an industrial farming AI, loyal to Fenn, that he’d enhanced over the years.
“You sure that’ll work?” Emery asked. She sat on the ground with crossed legs, rocking a toddler.
“She’s saved my butt many times.” Fenn chewed on his stubby nails.
Wally crawled over from a mess of fidgety toddlers and found Block. “Hi Bock.” She stuck her thumb in her mouth.
“Hello, Wally.” Block let her suck the thumb instead of pulling it out. “We have to be very quiet right now.” Wally hugged Block’s legs. The ominous hum of overhead drones sent Block’s threat module into overdrive. What if the SoldierBots found them? What would happen to the children? He wanted to ask Vacuubot for intel—how many were out there, how close?—but his friend was cloaked and therefore emitted no monitoring or tracking signals.
Six minutes ticked by before the drones’ hum faded.
“Are they gone?” Emery asked, breaking the silence.
“For now.” Fenn rose, his hands shaking as he pulled another cigarette from his front shirt pocket. “We should be good for a few days, maybe even a week. Garnet’s signal will hold them off.”
Block looked down at Wally. He’d crisscrossed the country to find her after losing her once. Never again. His only purpose in the world was to protect her and the other kids. Even with Mach X destroyed, they still faced constant threat.
Later, after helping Emery and Spoon settle the toddlers and babies, Block found Vacuubot on the porch, perched on top of a wooden banister. “How safe are we here?”
We have an airtight perimeter. Anything bigger than a cat wandering across will set off the monitors. G5 and I will be on it in a flash, Vacuubot messaged.
“Thank you, my friend.” Block leaned against the railing and watched the sun’s departure casting a wild display of salmon pink and sherbet orange. He wondered what had caused the fire and the sudden appearance of the SoldierBots. Maybe it was just a random occurrence, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bigger was at play.
Have you thought about going back to your CleanerBot body? Vacuubot asked.
“How’d you know about that?”
Maxwell isn’t great at keeping secrets. Well, are you going to?
Block wondered who else knew. “I don’t know. Not now.”
Why not?
“I want to protect the kids, and when I’m a CleanerBot, no one takes me seriously.”
Being a different bot doesn’t change who you are, Block. You’re still the same robot who saved Wally and the other kids. We respect you because of who you are, not just because of the body you’re in.
Block considered. It was true he’d been able to protect Wally for a long time in his old form, but being a CleanerBot made him vulnerable. “I’ll think about it,” he said.
Fair enough. But you don’t need a fancy body. And besides, I miss you always polishing me.
Block yanked out a folded cleaning rag from a hidden compartment in his arm. “I may look different, but I can still clean as good as any fresh-off-the-line CleanerBot.” He set to work scrubbing grimy spots from Vacuubot’s shell.
He didn’t stop until he could see his reflection in the drone’s smooth armor. The blue face staring back at him was foreign, but the body could fight back if something threatened Wally. He couldn’t lose her again.