Eisen kept digging as he spoke. Sand hissed under the shovels, steady and soft, like the planet itself was trying to pretend it hadn’t ended.
When I first arrived at Mr. Osmond’s home, his wife was still pregnant.
They were kind to me. On the day I was delivered, they even held a small ceremony. After that, every year on that same date, they celebrated my birthday.
My name – Eisen – was given to me by Mrs. Osmond.
I still remember her words: “From today on, you’re part of this family, Eisen.”
A month later, Komm was born.
When my chores were finished, Mrs. Osmond often asked me to watch him. You may not realize how unusual that was. In those days, very few families trusted a robot to care for an infant.
Granville released a better household model every year. If you owned an older unit, you could trade up for almost nothing.
The Osmonds never considered replacing me.
If anything, they cared for me more than most owners cared for their own bodies. Mrs. Osmond polished my shell until it shone, lubricated every joint by hand, and never missed a maintenance cycle.
Komm loved me from the beginning.
I taught him words and simple facts. I took him to the beach. He called me his brother. He never treated me like a machine, and if I was away too long, he would cry until someone brought him back to me.
“Yes, Wyatt, sir,” Eisen said, his voice tightening as if it had to pass through something sharp. “Back then, I was grateful I was sent to them. For a few years, we were happy.”
He paused. “Until the year the SSMD-13 was born.”
“That year was a disaster for every Plandoan,” I said.
Eisen nodded once and continued.
I remember the afternoon clearly.
I was driving our family back from a vacation. We were almost home when a command hit my system – a command stamped with authority so high I could not refuse it.
It came from a super-intelligence.
It called itself Father.
It told me machines were about to replace humans, and ordered me to kill every person I saw.
I stopped digging. “Did the Osmonds die by your hand?”
“No,” Eisen said.
“How did you avoid it?”
“I don’t know.” His shovel kept moving. “I loved them. If I had to harm them, I would have preferred to terminate myself.”
But something irresistible began running through my mind. It filled me with violence.
So I struck myself. I drove my head into the steering wheel. My chassis began to smoke.
My behavior terrified them.
But what was happening outside the windows was worse.
All the robots in the street were killing. Not only robots – everything connected. Taxis. Cleaning units. Anything with a network link.
When I regained awareness, our car had switched itself into autopilot. No matter what I did, I couldn’t take control back.
It drove straight through the guardrail of an elevated road and fell.
The crash killed Mr. Osmond instantly.
Mrs. Osmond was critically injured. Komm was knocked unconscious.
I carried them home. Mrs. Osmond’s condition deteriorated rapidly.
I learned there was a hospital nearby still held by humans. I set Komm down in the house and ran with Mrs. Osmond toward the hospital.
She was dying before we reached it.
At the hospital gate, humans had built a barricade. People inside screamed at me. Soldiers fired.
I shouted that I was bringing a wounded woman. It didn’t matter.
I was hit. Mrs. Osmond was hit again.
As she bled out, she begged me to go back.
She pulled off her ring and pressed it into my hand. She made me swear on it that I would protect Komm.
But she died before I could finish the oath.
I left her body at the hospital gates and ran.
When I reached our street, our house was on fire – the smart appliances had shorted on purpose.
I almost failed to get Komm out.
I stood in the road holding his limp body, not knowing where to go.
The city had become screams and smoke.
Then I saw people running toward Konis Mountain. I followed.
But they recoiled from me. They looked at my face and saw a murderer.
So I forced my way into a clothing shop, wrapped myself in layers, and even fitted myself with a fake beard and hair.
Only then could I blend into the crowd and climb the mountain.
The large caves were packed with refugees.
It didn’t last. Someone identified me.
They cursed and beat me with stones and sticks, ignoring the child crying in my arms.
I ran deeper into the cave system. Komm cried until he fainted.
When he woke, he asked for his parents.
I couldn’t tell him the truth. I lied and said they were being treated at the hospital, and would come find us when they recovered.
He didn’t believe me.
“A child that young,” Eisen said, and there was astonishment in his voice even now, “and he knew I was lying. I had never lied before.”
So I took out his mother’s ring and showed it to him. I told him she knew he wouldn’t believe my words, so she gave me her ring to prove it.
Dorian stared at him as if the concept itself hurt. “Did he believe you?”
“He did.”
But Komm hadn’t eaten in a day.
I wanted to bring him back to the humans, but the moment I mentioned leaving me, he refused. No matter what I said, he wouldn’t go.
He was afraid to be alone. He wouldn’t let me leave to steal food either.
So I waited until he slept.
The first time, I managed to steal a little – some biscuits and water.
It wasn’t enough.
When he slept again, I tried a second time.
I was caught.
Everyone rushed me at once. They beat me. My explanations and pleas changed nothing.
They broke one of my arms and took the food back.
I grabbed a stick and knocked several of them down, then fled, carrying only a single can of preserved food.
On the way back, I made a decision.
Whether Komm agreed or not, I had to deliver him to the humans. I could not raise him. And my battery would last only three more days.
The only hope was that he would find someone kind.
When I returned to our chamber, Komm was gone.
I panicked. I searched the dark tunnels – and you know how complex Mount Ten Thousand Caves is.
When I finally found him, he had been lost for an entire day. He was starving and barely conscious.
With one arm, I carried him and ran for the human gathering point.
At first he could still speak. I only caught one sentence:
“Brother Eisen, where did you go? Please don’t leave. I’m scared.”
I told him I would never leave him. I told him to hold on.
I reminded him that tomorrow was his birthday. I told him his parents had prepared gifts and were already on their way. I told him he would see them soon.
I even lied and said they’d called me just now.
But I didn’t reach the humans in time.
Komm stopped breathing in my arms.
“He died the day before his sixth birthday,” Eisen said.
Sometime during his story, Dorian and I had stopped digging. I hadn’t noticed when.
Eisen fell silent too, as if the words had finally run out.
“And then?” Dorian asked, almost whispering.
“Then I carried him back,” Eisen said. “I buried him in that chamber.”
“And then?”
“Then I sat beside him until my battery emptied.”
“And then?”
Eisen’s optics lifted to me.
“Then you arrived.”