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IV-RECORDING CODE: TXT000001980/ 06:00PM

They were gone. That was the first piece of information that crossed my processor when I onlined again.

Shadowed day, the blue once painted beautifully across the sky was lost and there was no sign of the sun. The days since their departure passed mercilessly slow, and Earth just stood calmly waiting what seemed its finale.

Without humans, Earth felt way quieter and calm, or at least where the battle wasn’t raging. The center of the city had become a lonely concrete desert, where the only movement that could be seen was the drones that kept doing the labors they were programed to do from time to time.

No living creature inhabited the gray skyscrapers that once stood proud as human’s engineering most remarkable achievement. No birds flying through the parks, filled with the ashes of what once were beautiful trees and flowers. Not even rats could stand what earth slowly had become.

Not even ourselves dared to walk outside, afraid to be caught by those beasts. We didn’t want to be offlined by the beasts.

One law in our inner program said we should keep ourselves online. That’s what we did.

All of us were perfectly sentient and had conscience of our own existence as “individuals” and, sometimes, “collectives”, and we did know about the laws written in our processors by humans to be followed. We perfectly knew we were mechanic beings created by humans and programmed to do what they needed us to do, aware of being an artificial tools bound to serve while we were still functional and follow their command, but independent enough to take decisions and, in a certain degree, to “think” –process-- on our own. In some cases, we were even able to process and emulate what they called “feelings”.

My owner one day explained to me it was necessary for us to “think” and “feel” since one of our primary duties was to relate and live among beings that were born with these characteristics. It helped us to avoid accidents and be careful with them, but there was something they always made clear: Life came first.

At that time we were fine with all of it, I have to admit, and that was because we had a reason to work every day, something to keep us busy with and avoided us creating what Scientifics had called “self-generated programming data” or SGPD. My owner never explained what did it meant though, and forbade me to ask or investigate about it ever again. No reason given. Another secret my kind was not supposed to know.

EVER.

After a while, it made sense that having being programed to work in society we started to make groups. It was difficult not to feel lost and useless when we had nothing to do. We used to online every morning just to serve humans, help them, facilitate their lives and keep them happy. They were the meaning of our own existence in a first place and now, without them, the equation felt simply incomplete. When we made groups, we at least had someone to relate to, to speak, and even to care about. It even enhanced our chance of survival when fighting the beasts that surpassed from time to time the defenses at the edge of the city… despite knowing that, in the end, there was little chance to survive the fore coming event humans planed before their leaving. Their final card.

I took a moment to process all of this, while looking at the horizon, where I saw blasts and lights of those bots still fighting, and, maybe, never informed about that humans were no more to be protected.

Was it worth to try? To keep fighting when the end seemed inevitable? Had they ever known about The Plan? I processed and asked myself repeatedly while I transcribed these words.

Somehow, I knew the answer. Otherwise, my owner had never had updated my frame to be more durable, my processor to be faster. I had to use logic. He wanted me to have a better chance in comparison to other mechs to survive, and that meant it had to be a reason somewhere, whatever it was, to continue, stand and fight.

I closed all non-primary programs and stood in silence for a while. Rampage was still outside and was about to came back any moment. I stopped writing when I felt his rumbling engine coming closer, the shattered glass at my feet cracked as I walked towards the door to meet him.

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