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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"So at least my skills will be of some use to the resistance," I say to Austin as we wind our way up College Street. The evening sun is bright red and I look up at my fiancée through its rays. His long, angular face shows no reaction and he falls silent.
We're headed to Dharma, the popular, dimly-lit hangout where kids from the university begin nights of attempting to drink each other under the table. Austin and I first met when we were in school – teacher's college and med school respectively, and he took me to Dharma for our first date. I was charmed by its moody atmosphere, black walls, and red paper lanterns. Now, we make a yearly pilgrimage to celebrate the anniversary of the beginning of our romance.
He's a month into his residency, and all this week has been toiling away at Sunnyside Hospital. I always lose track of time when he is at the hospital for so long. Was it yesterday morning when I last saw him? Or the evening before last? The strange passage of time that occurs when he's working is the most difficult part of our relationship. Events and friends and places are categorized into "with Austin" and "without Austin". Often the two categories become confused in my head, and I'll accidentally refer to things and people and places that he has not experienced.
When he finally arrived home earlier today, I could smell the hospital lingering around him. The familiarity of it made me so relieved to have him near. His lanky tallness and reddish brown hair are so comforting that for a moment, I believe everything is going to turn out right.
Shoes off, he bounds down the hall to the bedroom. This is our ritual: If I'm home when he comes back from work, I'll follow him to the bedroom of our little first floor apartment with its low ceiling and bay window. I'll watch him change from the requisite stuffed shirt and dress pants of his profession into jogging pants and a t-shirt.
He'll talk about his day and the foibles of the new iTronics CareBots: the mechanical nurses that have replaced their human counterparts. He'll tell me about the state of his patients and intra-hospital politics. He'll talk until he's nude and I'll pull him to me, wrap my arms around his middle as I sit on the bed, and bury my face in the warmth of his torso. Sometimes we'll collapse on the bed or he'll nap, sometimes we head to the kitchen or tiny sitting room to talk about the lost time.
But today's our anniversary, so we don't do either. I can't wait until the restaurant to catch up. I can't wait until he's even finished undressing. There's too much to say.
"Austin," I begin. "I need to tell you something."
"Yeah?" He's focused on his sock drawer, clawing through it in an attempt to find a matching pair.
I need him to focus on me. "This is serious."
He turns to me, blue irises swallowing up pupils until they're pinpricks.
I kinda... I lost my job."
His brow furrows as he frowns. He comes to the bed and sits beside me, two mismatched socks still in one hand. "What do you mean? Who's with your class, then?"
