RoboNomics

Chapter 44 - 2016

We walk down College Street and look for some cheap place to eat. When we see the sign "Sam's Sandwiches" over a divey little joint, we figure it's our best bet. 

The restaurant's windows are large, and it gleams white on the inside. I can see its flaking tile and broken florescent panel lights from the street.

Crowded next to the entrance is a small clutch of people holding cardboard signs. I don't look at them or read their signs. Austin opens the door to the diner and a bell over the entrance chimes. But I feel someone grab my sleeve.

"Please," she says. 

I turn to look at her. Her face is lined and pockmarked. She wears thin rags but has a complete set of straight, white teeth. 

"Please. I lost my pension. The company I worked for went bankrupt and the union doesn't exist anymore to get it back for me. I worked for thirty years and now I won't have a retirement. Anything you can give me would help. A dollar or even a quarter?"

"Andrea, come on," Austin stands in the open doorway.

"I'm sorry," I say to the woman. "We lost everything too."

"Hasn't everyone?" One of her younger companions says. 

I shrug. The young man's brown eyes peer at me from out of a dirty face.

Once we've ordered the sandwiches we sit at a wobbly table against the wall. We haven't eaten all day. 

Neither of us stops eating to speak. I am wholly absorbed in my ham sandwich and thinking about the woman outside. 

Where are her children? Why aren't they taking care of her? Why is she on the street?

Suddenly, my thoughts are pushed aside by the noisy InvisiScreen. The machine is mounted in the wall at the end of the sandwich counter. The authoritative tones of a news anchor reading headlines fill the restaurant. 

I look up and see that it is a flickering hologram of a bright-eyed young woman in a pink suit. There are no humans on the news anymore.

"The attacks on robots, droids and other automated machines are rising in strength as well as in number. Until today, it was thought that the attacks were random. But this afternoon, a group calling themselves the Anti-Robotists took credit for the attacks. This adds to the group's apparent record of planting a bomb at the Queen's Park riot over a month ago, as well as terrorizing key members of robotics companies. A pre-recorded message was released today by the group in which their anonymous leader explains the actions."

The picture cuts to a dim room walled in black. A man stands in the middle, his head and face covered with a black balaclava. His eyes are the only exposed parts of his face. But I stop eating mid-bite. I'd know those eyes anywhere.

"We represent all those who have lost their livelihoods to the Scourge of automated labor," he begins in a distorted voice. 

"We stand for the abused laborers and employees who gave their life's blood to their vocations, only to find themselves without means, without benefits, without loyalty, and without any way to provide a life for themselves and their families.

"We will not tolerate being cast aside in the name of better profits. We will crush the AI revolution. We won't stop fighting until this blight on human kind is extinguished. Anyone who opposes the tyranny of automated labor will be taken care of by us, the Anti-Robotists. Anyone who stands with the robotic cause will be eliminated."

He's nothing if not determined, I think as Chris finishes his speech. 

And now that his group claimed responsibility for the bomb, he'll only have one thing on his mind: how to keep me from telling anyone what I know about where his loyalties really lie.

(Continued in Chapter 45...)

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