Member-only story
The Last Free Human
Part I: What happens when robots “save” humanity?
Elana stretched out on the cold, wooden pew, staring at the altar, its golden adornments now covered in dust and cobwebs. The robots were still unaware of her existence. Religion-less, they had no reason to enter the ornate building.
Ironically, she had spent the last two years living in a church, though she had rejected organized religion long ago. She was angry that this atheist tilt had made her somewhat robot-like.
She had recently picked up a pen and tried recording her thoughts only to realize that she didn’t have the language to describe what had happened. Her vocabulary belonged to a different world — one that no longer existed. To put it in robot terms, her training data was out of date.
The fact that she escaped was a fluke.
During the event, as she called it, every human was assigned — or was given? — to a robot. In her primitive mind, when she thought about the apocalypse, it was a singular event, like an asteroid striking the earth. This transition was gradual, until it wasn’t.
It was a Wednesday that started as Wednesdays usually do. Robots had already gained a majority of the leadership positions in the country and had taken over most businesses, relegating humans to subjective, artful…
