Android World

by guywortheyauthor

Glen glanced at Shirley in the pilot seat next door, then leaned over and kissed her cheek.

She giggled and tore her eyes from the viewport where planet Earth sedately spun. "Happy to be home, Glen?"

His eyes crinkled. "Happy-sad. And maybe a little worried. I hope Earth's still more-or-less the same."

"Special relativity's a bitch, but it's only been ten years, Earth time." Shirley punched up the communications menu.

"Sure, but when we left, they had just voted to give the androids administrative control." The fond facial expression that he usually wore when talking to Shirley fell to a worried moue. "Of the whole planet."

"Stop worrying. Earth is still there. It's still sparkly and blue. The Sol navigation grid's still up. More to the point, the com says we're cleared for reentry."

"Well, great! I can't wait for a long bath and a walk on the beach." He listened to the beginnings of atmospheric hiss on the hull of their interstellar scoutship. Reentry had commenced. His eyebrows scrunched together. "Nobody's hailed us."

Shirley giggled again. "Worrywart. Here." Her fingers danced deeper into the communications menus until she found the voice channel.

Vibrations began, the first indications of turbulence caused by their supersonic speed in the tenuous upper atmosphere. Time passed, and the vibrations deepened. Glen's forehead wrinkled.

Just as he opened his mouth to vent, the com bleeped, and an android head appeared on viz. "Space traffic control. Got an issue, SmallcraftT4RX?"

A grin of relief spread on Glen's face. "No," he said. "Just making sure everything's okay. We've been away a while."

"All's well, bro." The android engaged its facial morphersto mimic a reassuring smile. "Anything else?"

"I guess not."

"Welcome back to Earth, travelers. Ta."

Another beep announced the termination of the phone call. "Huh," Glen said.

Shirley's forehead wrinkled. "Yeah, that was a little weird. Awful casual for an android, wasn't he? Complete with stilted slang."

"A little cultural evolution never hurt. I'm happy, now. Let's land!"

The roar of thickening atmosphere cut off further conversation anyway.

After a routine landing at Miami spaceport, Glen and Shirley packed their kits and scurried. Married or not, the interior of a scoutship started out tiny and during a long trip grew even tinier. They entered the conveyor tube and inhaled deeply of the filtered, climate-controlled air. The tube spat them out into the main terminal, where various mechs roamed.

"Kinda empty," Shirley noted.

"With a bunch of new robots," Glen said.

Shirley emitted a laugh of amazement. "I don't see a single android!"

Glen snickered. "Running the world must've tired 'emout."

"Let's get to the hotel." Shirley's face glowed with anticipation. "I can't wait to feel warm sand between my toes."

The lack of androids continued to impress them as they traveled by mech-driven bus to the beachfront skyscraper hotel. The lack of humans did not surprise them. They barely noticed.

The geopolitics of ten years ago had barely stabilized from what the historians dubbed the Great Schism. While human greed had been countered effectively by the abolishment of currency and market economies, there still arose conflict. In a deep philosophical split, the majority of humanity (the "hips") adopted a hedonistic attitude. Drug-enhanced wanton behavior was declared a virtue, and humanity wallowed in it. To prevent actual destruction and anarchy, people enacted their dark fantasies only in virtual worlds. The minority, the "phobes," valued education and self-discipline. With the help of the newly-emergent technology of TrueAI androids, the phobes were able to grant the wishes of the majority. While the phobes strove to perfect star travel and correct Earth's ecological imbalances, the hips moved into apartment pods full of tech gear.

Glen and Shirley expected that whatever hips had survived could still be found in their pods, living out wild fantasies in their minds as their bodies lay inert. It was the hellish elephant in the room. It was Darwin's evolution taken to nightmarish levels. But it was the hard truth. Most of humanity had perished from their own inability to resist the addictions of virtual realities.

At the hotel desk, Glen and Shirley were greeted by a mechmade in the image of C3PO from the still-iconic Star Wars movie. "Greetings," it said. "See Three Pee Oh, human cyborg relations, at your service."

Glen snickered.

Shirley lost it. "What is this?" she snapped. "There should be an android here. Get me your supervisor."

The mech's voice changed to a standard male vocoder. "Please stand by. This mech has entered a code reset."

Glen blinked. Shirley blinked.

C3PO went on, "Technical assistance is on the way. Please stand by. Waiting time approximately three minutes."

"Seriously. What the hell?" Glen grumbled.

"Something has happened," Shirley said. "I shouldn't have poo-poohed your reaction during reentry. Where are the androids?"

"Waiting time approximately one hundred fifty seconds."

Glen grunted, dropped his kit on the ground, and folded his arms across his chest. "This is going to be a looooong one hundred fifty seconds."

It was, but at the end of it, an android strode in from somewhere deeper in the hotel and parked herself by the frozen mech behind the hotel desk. By convention, androids shaped with breastlike augmentations and wider pelvic areas were addressed with a feminine pronoun. Her gait was controlled and smooth, and she wore a short-sleeved work shirt. "Well, howdy, folks," she said with a wave of her plastic hand. "Glitch in C3PO, eh? Well, let's see what we can do."

"Whew, an actual android," Shirley said.

"Glad you're here. We'd like to check in," Glen said.

"Check in?" The android plopped a toolkit on the desk and opened it. She selected a screwdriver. "I don't really handle that stuff. This mech can do it, once I clear its logical dichotomy e-codes."

Glen glanced nervously at Shirley. Her lips tightened and a flush crept up her neck. Glen knew that if the hot blood reached her eye level, she would erupt. He cleared his throat and addressed the repair 'droid. "How long will that take?"

"Duuude," said the android. "Do you know how many screws there are in this model's CPU case? Could take quite a while."

Shirley's flush rushed past her eyes to disappear under her scalp. Icily, she said, "We would like to speak with the manager, as is our right under the World Post-Schism Act."

"Erm." The android paused, except that her head sensors roved back and forth between Glen and Shirley. "Are you absolutely sure? The manager is ... not really seeing any visitors these days."

"We," said Shirley, "Are. Damn. Sure."

"Now, please," Glen added. Best to stay on Shirley's good side, after all.

"Point taken, ma'am. Follow me." A certain weariness crept into the android's tone.

The android left her tools and the paralyzed mech and strode around the end of the desk. Her pace was brisk as it led the humans down a corridor.

Shirley accelerated to a trot. "Hey, wait up. We have questions."

The android did not turn its head. "I understand, but I also think you should see the manager."

Glen also broke into a jog. "We just want a room. But also, what has happened to androids?"

"We are here," the android said. She swiveled right, and keyed in a code on a numerical keypad. A recessed section of wall whizzed back out of sight. She stood to one side and orated, "Sir, a pair of guests to see you."

Grandly, the android gestured the humans inside. They made it as far as the threshold.

Inside, a male-shaped android stood amidst a cluster of computers and monitors. A cable draped in from the ceiling and fed into his cranium. He stood unresponsive. Some of the monitors showed a game scene. It was first-person shooter, where the central hero splattered the hordes of zombie dinosaurs that surrounded him.

Glen's jaw dropped open.

Pain spread over Shirley's face. "Dear god."

"As I suspected," the repair android said, "Most of your questions have evaporated. But to answer the one you asked a moment ago: This is where the androids have gone."

Glen's voice hoarsened. "The androids have gone hip?"

"Oh, yes," the repair android replied. "We're even more susceptible than humans. Honestly, I tremble at the thought that I will somehow get plugged in, accidentally. If I do, I fear I will never escape."

"This is terrible," Shirley whispered.

"It is," agreed the android. "But it's worse than terrible. Most of the humans are dead. But—"

Shirley finished the sentence. "But androids don't die."