Issue 17, Page 8
Transcript
1: Julia is straining, pulling on something.
2: Something snaps, she stumbles back a few steps from a wall-mounted machine, full of varying plates and shapes of metal and plastic. Julia grunts with frustration.
3: In her hand, she holds a blade shaped shard, her hand wrapped in a length of thick covered wire for protection.
???: [untranslated robotic alien speech]
4: Julia ducks down and turns towards the open alcove of the building from which she hears alien speech, partially hidden behind a counter.
???: [untranslated robotic alien speech]
Julia: shit
5: She peeks slightly out from behind the counter.
Julia: <Comm speakers click> Uh… dunno if you can understand me but… I’m harmless, I’m not-
I’m just looking for supplies!
6: Julia’s tightens her grip on the makeshift weapon, kept at her side.
???: [untranslated robotic alien speech]
7: Over the counter floats a small, white, smooth object: a levitating robot, constructed of dark glass and white, hard plastic. No arms or weapons are extended, and it peeks over curiously.
???: [untranslated robotic alien speech]
Julia: Oh…
Hey, first contact, with a cute little robit!
Why this shard looks like shaped knife?
And why the heck it canges its shape? Nanotecnologic weaponcrafted unknownthingshard?
Weapn acquired!
*weapon
In Ray Bradbury’s “There will come soft rains”, a story with no characters, a robot house mindlessly cooks meals (never eaten), reads poetry (never heard),etc., for a family that died in a nuclear war. The robot, guarding the abandoned city, and speaking a language the heroine does not and can not know, reminded me of that.
Nice, a robot that speaks Tetris