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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I open my apartment door to reveal Elizabeth, standing on the stoop in a bright orange trench. She turns to me when she hears the screen door rattle and holds up a bottle of amber wine that glints in the late March sun.
"Trust me," she insists as I make way for her to enter my teensy foyer. "We're going to need it."
She messaged only an hour ago, saying she needed some commiseration immediately and then using our code: AAE. A silly SOS code that stands for Andrea and Elizabeth. It means wine, it means venting. It means serious one-on-one bonding.
I figured I needed some AAE time as well. The time alone with Austin before his next set of shifts dragged on, first with him sleeping on the sofa and then with us keeping an icy wall up between us. He still hasn't apologized. I still haven't apologized. But now that he's back at work, I could use someone to talk to.
"What's up?" I ask.
Elizabeth throws her trench on a hook in the hall and immediately sets down on the couch, the bottle on the coffee table. She opens it.
I head to the kitchen, swing open one of our ancient cabinets with its handle inexplicably in the center of the inlaid wood panel, and grab a couple glasses.
She waits until she's poured out two massive portions, takes a swig of hers, and only then begins to talk.
"So it's midterms," she begins. Elizabeth teaches junior high, and midterm means exam time. For me as an elementary teacher, this time of year only meant the beginning of spring break.
"Yeah?" I can see there's something important that she needs to say.
"And the machines got test scores up. A lot."
"So?"
She takes another deep swig of wine, then rushes through her words. "So I'm done. Finished. Fired. I can't compete anymore. Not with androids."
I'm floored. I can't believe what I'm hearing. "How many?" I blurt out.
"How many..." She eyes me suspiciously as the question hangs in the air between us.
"How many teachers have they replaced?"
"Andrea, I was a little busy being laid off. I didn't have a lot of time between trying to say goodbye to my students and being escorted out of the building by the Principal to clock numbers, okay?"
"Oh, I know. I've been there, remember?" My tone is terse, but I'm busy searching the news behind my eyes. Busy trying to find out whether this is it: the tidal wave of job loss.
It doesn't take me long to find it. Multiple national news outlets have it splashed in bold across above their folds: TORONTO TEACHERS TERMINATED.
"Fuck," I let out as it clicks in my brain. Maybe Austin is right.
