Programmed Priorities

Plumes of smoke had eclipsed the sun for centuries. So long, in fact, that the residual clock battery in the TA-96 had died many years ago.

As the atmospheric conditions leveled out, the sun broke through the altered skies above. A fiery, orange glow filled the ravaged city skyline, illuminating a nearly desecrated earth.

Reawakened by the filtered sun rays shining through the window, the robot found itself in a silent world. A recalibration of its microphone proved the sound system was still functional. The ominous silence was unfamiliar, unsettling - something that would take much more data collection for the memory to adjust to.

On the floor next to the TA-96, the prized silver locket of its former owner caught the focus of its sensors. Indiscriminate piles of soot and ash covered the floor. Most everything had been vaporized by the final moments of the catastrophic event. The camera continued to scan the terrain of dark corners, blown out windows, and open door ways; unfamiliar, but recognizable as obliterated bones of the home robot had been programmed for.

The robot had been designed to serve the master of the house. Priorities algorithmically customized to her personality directed the robot's every movement. Powered by solar batteries, as well as a wireless backup charger, it maintained the condition of the dwelling and attended to the direct needs of its designated owner - at the manifestation of her will.

These features made the robot a perfect in-home servant, ready to attend to every need as soon as it arose.

A popular trend in the era before whatever had caused the battery failure, most humans owned personal robots much like this one. The TA-96 model was among the most sought after. Flashy advertisements on LCD screens and high-rise billboards used to cover the metropolitan area.

Scanning the room for more indicators to connect with images from the robot's memory, the only recognizable item was the solitary silver, heart-shaped locket half buried in the dust on the floor.

It honed in on the locket. Programmed to always ensure it was in the maiden's possession, it decided its first task was to return it to her immediately.

It tried to initialize its arms, but the system failed. Once again scanning the area, it focused its attention back on the locket.

The arm system failure was due to the loss of its grapple function. Scanning the area once more, but this time, enacting its' backup 360 degree function, the TA-96 noticed that it's arms were no longer present. This was categorized as the cause of the system failure.

The TA-96 recalled that there were hardware replacements in the basement of the house. In order to retrieve the locket, the robot would have to first get its spare arms from the cellar.

Scooting across the floor, it made its way to the other room. Scanning as it rolled through the rubble, it added the "clean the floors" function to its task list.

The lonely robot crossed into the next room where the stairs to the basement were located. It turned the doorway and reached the top step. Designed to be able to ascend and descend stairs with or without arm function, it proceeded to the cellar, and fell several meters to the ground below.

This was not engineered into the durability of the TA-96 model.

The stairs had been completely vaporized in the doomsday blasts, and the robot shattered against the stone floor one story below.

The fall smashed the rest of the exterior shell of the robot, ultimately breaking the motor mobility function. The core processor and camera remained intact, so the robot scanned once again. It located the metal box placed against the wall next to what would be the bottom of the stairs.

With another floor covered in the debris added to the cleaning task list, the robot went into high priority mode to retrieve the prized locket in the room upstairs.

The robot attempted to initialize the motor function to cross the room. Its arms were in the very metal case within its' camera's vision. It's mobility system failed, having suffered the weight of the descent.

Cycling between its registered failures for both the 360 degree scan and motor functions, the robot moved into emergency mode. The light from the sun didn't reach down into the cellar, so the robot's battery charge began to dwindle.

It initialized its' siren mode for immediate assistance from another robot or, in this case, the owner themselves.

That locket was the most important thing to its owner, as she was never seen without it. The heart shaped locket appears in the gallery that used to hang in the home, as well as every picture she posted online and programmed into the robot's recognition mainframe. In every image on record, that favorite heart shaped locket was present.

The siren echoed into the abysmal remains of the home. No furniture or roof to contain the sound, it rang out into the vacant neighboring houses. The very first sound in centuries to break through the silence in the ruins of the city.

No response for several minutes, and the robot engaged the horns reserved for high priority, time-sensitive emergencies: fire, theft, and medical threats fell into this category.

The horns blared into the neighborhood, echoing over a much larger range that its' normal siren's speaker. Absolutely nothing returned its call. No signal to the router or Bluetooth devices registered on its' radar. The final sounds of the robot rang for another few minutes until the batteries eventually died in the light-deprived room.

The city had not seen any sort of movement apart from the smoke and fires that raged for centuries across the decrepit world, until this particular robot came along.

Most metal objects that were not fire resistant were broken apart in the initial blasts of doomsday. Having had the benefit of an extra buffer in the form of a stone wall to protect it, this robot was the luckiest one.

Even though the house was a fair distance from the center of the city, the shockwave of the blasts had torn off the roof and knocked out the upper floors of the dwelling. The fires moved across the land, consuming everything else in the aftermath - byproduct of the initial blasts.

The final images captured by the robot before blinding white lights were of its' owner looking out the same window in horror, wearing the very same heart shaped locket.