Robot Amnesia

I froze with one foot planted ahead of the other along the narrow game trail. Few rays of sunlight broke through the deep green canopy to play across the undergrowth to either side of me. Except for a single woodpecker, the entire forest fell silent and seemed to listen with me. Had I heard a voice or simply imagined it? I waited, sampling the aroma of the pine needles I had just crushed.

Overhead, a light breeze whispered through the tallest trees' upper branches. I scanned the trail ahead, the fiery red rhododendrons to my right, the variegated ivy to my left. I twisted to reassess the trail I had ascended, all the way down to where it passed between a pair of huge burned stumps and dropped out of sight.

The woodpecker continued to tap out its Morse code. It sent the same message I thought I had heard spoken moments before, "Help me."

I remained motionless as several more minutes ticked by.

"Help me."

My attention snapped to the left. Both sounds, the voice and the tapping, emanated from the same direction. I glared at the ivy for several seconds before I realized something, or someone, had already forced its way through. I plunged in, whacking at several impeding vines with my machete. Immersed in the tangle, I halted to listen again.

Weak to the point of sounding drowsy, the voice repeated the plea. "Help me."

"I'm coming! Conserve your energy," I said.

Several more minutes' struggle rewarded me with the sight of a single eye peering at me through the foliage.

"I see you!" I said, thrashing my way through a thicket of saplings.

"I see you," the voice replied from the bracken.

He sat sprawled against the aged charcoal husk of a fallen tree trunk, his right arm outstretched to drum his coded message with a finger. His right lens dangled against his cheek, part of his metal skull having been shorn off. A mangled joule-rifle lay just beyond his reach.

I pawed a bit of the lichen beard from his titanium chin then pulled out my serrated knife to cut away some of the tougher vines that restrained him.

"Can you stand?" I queried.

"No. I barely have energy to maintain cog." He paused, as a human might when taking a breath. "To maintain cognitive function."

I crouched to brush dead leaves from the solar cells on his shoulders. "This should help—a little. At camp, I have a small generator I can bring up here, but that will take several hours."

"Who am I?"

"You tell me. Dig deep," I told him.

"I am a soldier. A robot."

"You were a soldier. The war has been over for nearly twenty years now." I looked around, gesturing. "This scorched-earth battlefield is now a forest. Have you found your serial number?"

"JN."

"There should be more. Numbers."

"Numbers," he repeated. "Searching internal hardened memory banks."

I willed the leaves above to part and allow more sunlight to reach his trickle-charge array, to no effect. The light danced where it wanted to.

"Yes, more," he said. "I am JN-2062011248501. Also called 'Jon.'"

"You've been significantly damaged, Jon, and that may not be accurate. Do you have an analog identification and critical data repository?"

A latch in his chest clicked, and a panel opened, revealing a small, black book. "This contains important factoids. And other keys to unlock and restore my memory."

As I took the book from his compartment, an un-punched porta-pay card fell out followed by an old photograph. His serial number headed every page in bold, precise strokes. I confirmed it matched what he said, then I held the card up to his magna-code sensor. "This thing looks like it still has a balance. How much?"

"$20,000. I found a courier case full of them and buried it not far from here. I'm going to be rich when I make it back to civilization."

"Nice." The photo showed two camouflaged, rifle-bearing robots waving at the camera. I displayed it in front of his remaining good eye.

He nodded slightly. "I was twinned. Most of us were. My twin-unit was BN-2062101779601. I called him 'Ben.'"

"Yes, you did," I agreed. "I've wanted to find you for a long, long time, Jon. Let's go home, brother."

"Get your generator. I'll wait here," Jon deadpanned.

This was the Jon I remembered, though now he veiled years of distress and isolation behind his wry sense of robot-humor. "I'll be back," I told him. "Soon."

I stumbled out through the curtain of vines and located the game trail, clumping heavily downslope as fast as I could all the way to the portal created by the two blackened stumps. There, I halted. Across the narrow valley, the hilltops had been laid bare by artillery fire. Ranks of war machines clambered over burning tree trunks and churned up smoking soil in their mad race to deal out yet more destruction. A hundred feet below me, the rainbow-sheen of fuel on a peaceful stream was set alight by flaming soldiers leaping out of their burning vehicle.

I blinked, and the momentary vision was replaced by a huge willow and a doe that eyed me curiously from the far bank. She watched me take two steps forward, into the sunshine, out of the shadow of the tall trees, then she lowered her head and resumed drinking. The peaceful scene invited me to wait there while the noonday sun recharged my core.

After the doe left and another came and went, a woodpecker tapped in the distance. Something about its rhythm compelled me to turn and look up the hill. My secure breast panel clicked open, and, unwilling to trust old memories, I took out the black book to visually review written notes about this place and my mission here. Hill 529. This was where I would find my brother—perhaps somewhere along that almost imperceptible game trail that snaked upward. I replaced the book in its compartment and began my climb.

Author's note: The three meter tall robot Ben (BN-2062101779601) is also featured in the short stories Robot Remembrance, Robot Refuge, Robot Relationship and Robot Rustlers. You are invited to continue reading those stories here on Vocal. Follow these links:

Robot Remembrance | Robot Refuge | Robot Relationship | Robot Rustlers