Servo 6:2

That afternoon, Grandpa picked us up from school. We waited impatiently at the curb while the other kids got on school buses or had parents pick them up. There was no denying it, we were the strange ones. The other kids looked at us like we had some horrible disease and stayed far away from us. I figured we’d never be a part of the school. We would not have any friends, and our social lives would be relegated to hanging out with each other. I was beginning to feel like Suz—I missed the internet. Yes, the internet. My thoughts wandered back to what Mrs. Graham said. They would have to vote to allow internet into the area. Why were they so afraid? The internet had existed in one way or another since before the turn of the century. Over the years it had grown and expanded, allowing users to discover a near infinite amount of information in the digital realm. What was wrong with it? I figured that everyone on the entire planet would want to embrace as much knowledge as possible in order to make their lives better. Perhaps I thought wrong. “So, how was the first day, children?” Grandpa said as he opened the doors on the pickup for us.“Horrid!” Suz griped as she clambered into the backseat. “Absolutely horrid.”Grandpa said nothing more until we were on the way home. “So what did you learn?”I looked over at him, and with a very straight face said, “Nothing.”“Well, it was the first day, so maybe tomorrow you’ll learn something.”“I doubt that. Our teacher, Mrs. Graham, said the Great Separation was caused by the wealthy forcing out the poor.”“It was.”“And you believe that?”He slowed the truck and turned onto the long dusty drive. “I know it’s true because I had a hand in it. You know I was on the team that created battle bots—”“Yes.”“And much of the propaganda released was that they were used to quell an uprising of Americans not wanting to submit to the government’s will.”“Yes.”“But what you didn’t know was that most were poor and couldn’t afford what the government dictated that they do.”“Which was…?”“To maintain a net income of three hundred thousand dollars a year.”I let out a little laugh. “Oh, that’s nothing!”“For you, probably not. But many of these people were born the old fashioned way and weren’t capable of getting a high-tech job that would pay enough. They were forced to be laborers making far less than acceptable. And when the rents were increased to a high rate, they couldn’t afford it. Hence rebellion broke out because they thought it was unfair that the rich could live there and they couldn’t.”For a moment I took pause and gave it some thought. “Is that why you left the Inner States?”We pulled up to the house and Grandpa shut off the engine. “You think I left because I felt guilty about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people?”The way he said it answered the question. Yes, he must’ve held a huge amount of guilt. Maybe I didn’t want to pursue this anymore. I opened the door and climbed out, not saying another word. Behind me, Suz and Rory did the same. Perhaps I was unaware at the time, but I had actually learned something. Going up to our shared room, I sat down on the bed and started removing my shoes. Since they were new, they hurt my feet something terrible. Back home you normally didn’t have that problem. Shoes were custom fitted to your feet so there was no pain in breaking them in; they felt like you’d been wearing them all your life. With the misery removed from my feet, I pulled off my socks and let my feet air out. “Ahhhhh,” I said, giving my toes a good wiggle. The air in Nebraska seemed much drier than back home. It wasn’t like there was a protective bubble over the entire east coast, but it seemed that there was more moisture. Reclining back on the bed, I picked up my tablet and turned it on. How I wished the local news would flash on the screen, or messages from my friends. Yes, my friends…Now I realized how much I missed them. Would they even remember me when I return in a few years? All of us wanted to go back. Suz was probably going to be the luckiest and return first. I bet she’s counting the days until she can get on a plane and leave this place. She wasn’t the kind of big sister that cared much about her siblings. No, Suz was in life for herself, and damn anyone who got in the way of what she wanted. I suppose I can’t blame her. I want things in life too. But somewhere deep inside I have a duty to my younger brother. Even when I turn eighteen, I’ll probably stay here with Rory until he’s old enough to go back. That might ruin my plans for a career, but it’s how I feel. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with only old people watching over me. Sure Grandma and Grandpa Cranwinkle are nice, but would Rory be happy here by himself? He’s only ever known our family unit; someone familiar has always been in his life. The door creaked open and Rory wandered in. “Hey,” he said softly, climbing up on the bed.“Hi,” I replied, somewhat attempting to ignore him.“Can we listen to Dad?”For a moment I didn’t move a muscle. I felt my heart ache deeply. A tear threatened to well up in the corner of my right eye. I fought it back. Yes, I was perfectly able to grieve now, but I didn’t want to. “Sure,” I replied, reaching over to the small nightstand and opening the drawer. “Gimme a minute.”Removing one of the little boxes, I opened it and shuffled through the memory sticks until I found a recent one. I plugged it into the port on my tablet and let the computer go to work. Seconds later I had a menu screen prompting me to select an entry date. I scrolled down until I found one that piqued my interest. “Let’s listen to the one from about two weeks before he died.”“Okay.” Rory kicked off his shoes and got comfortable on the bed. “That would have been mid-March, right?”“Mmm, yeah, I think so.”“Seems so long ago.”I clicked on the date and closed my eyes. His voice soon filled my head.
“March 10th, 2055. I’ve made some progress on the new servo. The higher-ups are pleased and looking forward to me giving a demonstration in a couple of weeks. I hope I can get the power coupling sorted out, it’s not performing as it should. Perhaps I’ll take one home and see if Jonah can figure out how to make it work. He’s got the mind for those kinds of problems. In a way, I’m glad we had the kids by GEE, because they’re so much smarter than I. They all have a bright future ahead of them.If I could only figure out the reason I keep getting an error signal when the power is applied to the motor, I’d be one step further. Maybe it’s the encoder? The PID controller? Or just a nasty software bug that’s keeping me from getting it to work. All I know is I need to get this fixed and soon…Signing off.”
Rory and I lay there for quite a while before saying anything. I finally closed the application and set my tablet on the bed.“He meant that, right?”“What?” I replied.“That they were glad we’re GEE kids.”“Dad wouldn’t lie, you know that.”“Does that make you feel good?”“Yes, of course. Don’t you feel that they loved us enough to make us better than they were?”“I guess so. Just hope what happened to Mom doesn’t happen to us.”“They tested us, and we were fine, don’t you remember?”“Vaguely.” Rory got up and wandered around the room. “Want to sneak out tonight and work on the bot?”“Mmm, I dunno. What if Grandpa catches us?”“How can we fix the thing without him knowing?”“True. I’m sure he’s astute enough to notice the dust has been wiped off. And confident he’ll say something when an arm or leg appears.”“Maybe we can convince him to let us mess around with it—you know, nothing serious. Just to keep us happy.”“Doubt that,” I said, sitting up and swinging my legs off the side; from downstairs I heard Grandma hollering at us for supper. “Come on, let’s get some dinner and I’ll think about going out to the barn after.” “I’ve been noticing Grandpa goes to the library after dinner. Might be a good time to go.”