ROBOT JESUS

Manufacturer's Defect

Inside the store, a young man wearing a red vest, khaki pants, white oxford, loafers and an employee badge, which read, "Hi, I'm Justin Everly," was standing and sleepily staring at the unruly wall of shoppers, their wide eyes darting with adrenaline, their bodies physically squeezing into position, anxious for the Sooper Dooper store to finally open.

Justin was anything but ready to greet shoppers. He had closed the store the night previous and he was operating on near-zero sleep.

Gus Ferguson, a middle-aged manager who carried a protruding belly, had stationed Justin at the front of the store. It was a position–he had related earlier that morning–that "many employees would consider an honor."

In fact, the same thing happened every year. 

Gus positioned a newer employee at the front of the store because they had no idea what was about to hit them.

Sooper Dooper had the lowest prices, not just in the county, but in the world. 

On the day after Thanksgiving, Sooper Dooper offered several items at lower than cost in order to whip shoppers into an frenzy, a yearly ritual, but today was even bigger.

The first Tyro robot, which was released the year previous, was a big hit. A generic model known as "Cindy" was well known to be helpful around the home, but today they were introducing Jesus A.I., the brainchild of a legend in Artificial Intelligence, Dr. John Waters, who, like Justin, was an employee of the super-congolmerate, Tyro.

As Justin stood meekly at the front, Gus sat in an office in the back of the store. His fat fingers were busy operating a joystick, focusing a remote control surveillance camera on Justin. He had full control over the security cameras and an array of closed circuit tv sets mounted against the wall in front of his desk, three by three, nine monitors to capture the action.

Over the years, Gus had assembled quite a collection of videos that served to entertain what he liked to call his "inner circle." If Sooper Dooper ever fired him, he planned to sell the videos to America's Most Funniest Videos.

From Justin's angle, the people staring at him through the front door looked like animals. Hungry. Dangerous. 

But somehow, he failed to see that his own life could be in danger, perhaps from a lack in his education. There were no classes to teach a person self-confidence at high school.

And he was uber-distracted.

Something that had happened the night before had shaken him to the core.

...

Shortly after the driver unloaded the andys–a shortened form of the word "android" Justin had picked up from the movie, Blade Runner–he and a coworker were left alone to close the store. Not only that, they were working on Thanksgiving.

Justin felt this was a bad idea.

First of all, his coworker was a girl.

Aspen and he went to school together and Justin knew from some of their classes.

Justin didn't feel comfortable doing anything that might get him into trouble.

Aspen? Another story.

While Justin was locking the back door to the storeroom, Aspen was supposed to be turning off the lights.

Instead, it was clear to Justin that she had opened one of the units and "it" was standing right behind her.

"Don't!" Justin said.

"What?" she replied, as if she wasn't doing anything.

Justin was speechless.

"What?" Aspen demanded.

"Listen, we have to..." Justin continued.

"No you listen," Aspen was all of a sudden up in his grille, making a sharp point of her index finger and with every word, poking Justin in the chest.

"You ain't my manager. You don't tell me what to do. O.K?"

Justin backed away, wincing and tripping.

"Cut it out," he said, pushing her hand away, not wanting to reveal that her pointy-ass finger was hurting his tender chest.

Aspen stared down Justin, squinting to make sure he knew she meant business when...

"BEHOLD!!!" the andy bellowed, raising it's arms to the heavens.

Aspen nearly fell over sideways in surprise. Justin, in fact, fell straight backwards on his butt.

The two of them stared in wide-eyed disbelief as the andy glowed, backlit with a bright, unseen, impossible light.

"Jesus Christ!" said Aspen.