[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 32

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“Let’s get you out of here” Madeline urged. “The babies too. Do you know where the stairs are?” The girl nodded, then struggled to sling a pair of baby carriers over either shoulder. Madeline offered to take one, handing her gun to Lars. “You know how to use that thing, right?”

Lars sneered. “Please”. Then the moment I dreaded came, the bloodied nurse rounded the corner and spotted Helper. She shrieked and only didn’t fall backwards because Lars caught her. “SHOOT IT” she screamed, flailing in terror. “IT’S A FUCKING ROBOT, SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT!!”

It was the work of several minutes to calm her. Even then she wouldn’t speak directly to Helper and looked away, eyes screwed shut, whenever Helper tried to speak to her. Only trying to protest her own innocence, but the young nurse was having none of it.

“Keep it away from the babies” she demanded, voice hoarse and vicious. “Robots will do anything. Say anything. Don’t let her touch them.” Helper looked wounded, but kept her distance. I had the nurse walk at the rear of the group and told Helper to lead, lighting the way like some sort of postmodern Rudolf.

“You’re sure the stairs are through here?” Lars queried. The nurse confirmed it. Madeline doted on the baby suspended from her shoulder sling for a moment, folding back the blanket before suddenly looking up and staring at me.

“What’s the matter?” I whispered. She angled the baby carrier so I could see in. When I shone the light on it, rather than a gurgling infant...there was a doll. The sort used for medical training. It had a mouth opening to practice feeding it through which had been overloaded with formula, now leaking from the joints.

“I noticed the carrier dripping when she handed it to me but didn’t think anything of it until I realized I couldn’t hear the baby making any sounds. Couldn’t feel it breathing.” The nurse, who overheard more than either of us expected, called ahead to us. “Oh sure, Geoffrey’s a heavy sleeper. I found him that way, not even the gunshots or screaming woke him.”

I tensed up, as did Madeline. We shared another concerned glance, but kept walking. “I suppose you were right earlier” the nurse feebly babbled. “It’s enough that I saved these two. That’s the most anybody could ask of me right? I saved these babies. I saved them!”

Madeline and I nervously agreed, Lars still oblivious. We passed into a fairly large, pitch black room save for rows of blinking LEDS to either side. “This is the electrical utility room” the nurse explained. “The stairs are through here.”

So we advanced into the cavernous, silent chamber with Helper casting what meager red light she was able. I didn’t notice until we were a third of the way in that many of the blinking LEDs to either side of us had gone dark. Then the overhead lights came on.

Partially anyway. That many robots coming off the charger at once freed up just enough current that the fluorescent tube lighting could sputter and flicker like mad, but not stay on properly. Madeline and the nurse screamed.

We were surrounded. To either side, rows of dormant robots plugged into opened electrical boxes began waking up, heads turning in a staggered fashion to study the unfamiliar intruders. The ones behind us pulled away, cords popping free from the sockets, then retracting up into their bodies as they started towards us.

Madeline dropped the sling and dashed for the door at the far end of the room. The nurse clotheslined her. Madeline collapsed to the floor, still screaming as the nurse ran over and picked up the abandoned baby carrier.

“YOU WERE GOING TO LEAVE HIM!!” The nurse shrieked, wild eyed. “You fucking bitch! I’ll leave YOU, then!” With both carriers now slung from her shoulders, she hobbled through the far doorway, shut the door and propped something behind it to block our escape.

I turned back in time to see Lars blast a hole through the battery pack of a robot that was nearly upon him. He then deftly rolled out of the way before it could fall. If any of us got pinned here, that would be the end of it.

Lights flickering overhead, sporadically revealing cold white walls splattered with blood and robots clambering towards us as though animated in stop motion, the four of us ran to the barricaded door and pounded frantically on it.

No use pleading, the nurse was already gone. Lars kept shooting, downing them one at a time. No good, not in such cramped quarters. Helper waved me away from the door, then unloaded shell after shell into it until it came apart in a shower of splinters and dust.

She then left me to dismantle the fragments and turned around to add her firepower to Lars’. Deafening under normal conditions, the combination of gunshots and shotgun blasts agonized my eardrums due to the closed-in acoustics of the room.

I kicked out the remaining pieces of the door. Once satisfied we could fit through, I struggled to make my voice heard over the din. Only when Lars ran out of bullets did he look back. “EVERYBODY UP THE STAIRS!” I shouted, a dozen or so robots still coming.

They were never more than a few seconds behind us, clanking loudly as they scrambled up the metal stairs. The lights were now fully powered for the most part which aided our escape, as well as our aim on the way out.

“HELLO!” An unfamiliar white humanoid with a red cross on its chest jutted out from the doorway at the top of the stairs. “YOU ARE IN AN AREA WHICH IS OFF LIMITS TO PATIENTS!” It held up a bloodied scalpel. “I WILL ESCORT YOU TO YOUR ROOM, PLEASE FOLLOW-”

Its head came apart in a shower of plastic shards, scrap metal and buckshot. I winced as Helper was standing right next to me for that one, but kept climbing the steps. Planting one foot on the now headless robot’s chest, Helper kicked it backwards and trampled right over it as did the rest of us despite its continued movements.

Another robot of the same model leapt out at us when we rounded the corner. Helper’s shotgun gouged a ragged crater in its chest, bright blue sparks flashing brilliantly within. It stumbled a bit, then fell on its back as fire began spreading from the wound.

Then I spotted the nurse. Running down the last hallway between us and the reception area, both baby carriers in tow. Madeline snatched her pistol from Lars and raised it half-heartedly, but lowered it when she saw I was watching. To this day I wonder whether it made a difference that she was out of bullets.

No need. As the nurse receded down the corridor, the metallic whine from before returned, rapidly growing louder. The lights resumed flickering slightly. One of the fluorescent tubes burst in a shower of sparks and glass shards. Then it appeared.

A surgical robot. Every hospital has at least one. Under normal circumstances, a welcome sight. But with the lights as they were, dried blood all over the walls and bodies lining the floor, the last thing I needed was for that eight armed mobile operating table to show up.

Arms flailing, powered surgical tools sparking and grinding whenever they momentarily contacted the walls or ceiling, it made for a mind breaking sight. The nurse stopped in her tracks, as awestruck as the rest of us. Then the surgical robot launched itself at her.

Speeding down the corridor at a pace unmatched by any of the legged robots, the arachnoid metallic monstrosity eagerly pursued the poor, demented girl as she came running back towards us. Under the circumstances I was inclined to be at least temporarily forgiving, and wildly gestured for her to keep running this way.

Helper struggled to get a clear shot as she did so. “What are you waiting for!?” Madeline shouted. Helper, voice detectably stressed, answered that the shotgun spread prevented taking out the surgical robot without also severely injuring or killing the nurse at this distance.

We could do nothing but stand there and listen to her scream when the robot reached her. A set of four dedicated restraining arms seized her by the limbs and pinned her to the integrated operating table at the core of the robot’s bodily layout.

Additional motorized restraints then slapped shut over her waist, neck and forehead before the dominant limbs went to work. Their grisly, abhorrent work, the sight of which I still cannot erase from my mind however I try.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 33!}