As the glow of the early morning sun came through the window, signaling the start of a new day, it was met with the usual resistance. Daisy reluctantly stirred from her slumber, as the weight of unfinished projects and salvaged dreams lingering in her thoughts. While she had a responsibility of a dual life, a rebel by night and a professional by day, she had to make her day job the priority during the week. She reached out to snooze her alarm, as the bright display showing that was six in the morning. Even though she didn’t want to get up it was time to rise and face the day. Shaking off the remnants of sleep, Daisy went about her morning routine, a sense of purpose fueling each step. After a quick breakfast and a reassuring pat on Scraps' head, she headed out the door.
Her day job was at a Government Reconstruction & Dismantling Facility; a place responsible for decommissioning robots that had been used by AI against humans during the war. Mach-Tech Industries won the lucrative government contract and have been responsible for dismantling the remnants of the robot war. The role of its workers, including Daisy, was to dismantle the very machines that had once posed a threat to humanity. To repurpose their parts so that they could be used to create things that would benefit mankind rather that try to make them all extinct.
Mach-Tech had its headquarters in the heart of the city, a massive complex that buzzed with activity at all hours of the day. The company had been at the forefront of neutralizing the very dangerous robotic threats that had plagued society during the war. Daisy was born a few years after the war had ended, but even now they were many more machines and robots that needed to be dismantled and that duty was handled slowly and with kid gloves. Every year, thousands of machines were recovered from the war front as there were whole battlefields filled with them. Numerous governments sealed off those battlefields, and any access to the dangerous robots, out of fear some of them might come back online and try to resume hostilities.
As Daisy stepped into her workspace after changing into her gear, the familiar scent of metal and machinery greeted her. The stark, sterile environment was a stark contrast to the chaos of her own private workbench. The technicians and security personnel moved with a sense of urgency, focused on the task at hand. Daisy had mixed feelings about her work. While she appreciated the goal of neutralizing threats for everyone’s well being, she often wished for a world where robots could coexist harmoniously with humanity. Her father who was actually alive when the war went down kept telling Daisy that she cannot understand because she wasn’t there to see the violence and brutality machines were capable of. If she had known, she would never suggest letting them coexist with anyone. She had to ignore the naysayers but keep her comments to herself to not anger anyone.
“Good morning, Daisy,” A voice called out to her. It was Marcus, her colleague and the only person at the facility that she considered a dear friend. Marcus was a fellow technician with a brilliant mind and a passion for innovation. He was older than Daisy, but he didn’t mind taking the young girl under her wing and showing her how to do things properly.
“Morning, Marcus!” Daisy called back, “Ready to get to work?”
“Absolutely,” Marcus said with a chuckle, “These machines don't take apart themselves.”
The morning passed with a flurry of activity. Daisy carefully helped Marcus disassemble of the damaged robots, while noting each critical component. These machines had once been a menace, but thanks to EMP weapons, they had been rendered powerless, which a critical factor in the humans winning the war. The machines they were working on were considered medium sized threats, also known as a M.S.T. to the mechanics who worked on them. These robot were usually varied in size between the scale models of a person to some being as big as a decent sized automobile. The M.S.T.s looked scary enough to Daisy, and they were not even the biggest machines around. The larger threats known as a L.S.T., which stood for Large Sized Threat, were the real monsters of the Robotics war. Those machines were massive as some of them stood sixty feet tall and would often kill many humans just by stepping on them as if they were ants. Daisy remembered seeing her first L.S.T. which didn’t happen that often and those things were terrifying. She was more than content to work on the smaller robots, as they weren’t as menacing to her. As she worked, Daisy still couldn't help but marvel at the intricacies of the robots. Their engineering was awe-inspiring, a testament to human ingenuity that was later adopted and weaponized by AI.
“Hey, Daisy, take a look at this,” Marcus called out, holding up a part. “This was once a core component of a central controlled drone. The AI in these machines was quite sophisticated.”
Daisy took the piece from Marcuse and examined it closely, her eyes widening.
“It's amazing, isn't it?” She replied, “What they were capable of?”
“Death and destruction I’m afraid,” Marcus answered, deeply sighing. “I lost my father and a lot of friends during the Robotics War. Over two billion people were killed, and that was almost quarter of the planet’s population at the time.”
“Wow,” Daisy said, as she was relatively naïve about the war. Her father had tried to explain it to her, but it all just seemed so surreal. “I can't imagine the fear and chaos that it brought.”
“Indeed,” Marcus said, nodding. “The world was a different place during those times.”
Daisy kept examining the part, “This could be a game-changer. It could improve the efficiency of automated medical devices by leaps and bounds.”
“Exactly!” Marcus said, as he preferred not to scold Daisy for having hope. “Our work here can have a positive impact. A necessary step towards a future where this kind of advanced technology is only used to benefit humanity.”
“But?” Daisy said, as she knew one was right around the corner.
“But,” Marcus confirmed for her, “We need to be careful and not allow this technology and our dependence on it to progress too quickly. That kind breakneck advancement is the negligence that caused the Robotics War, and we got lucky the first time around. There’s no guarantee we’d survive round two if that ever occurred. So, we cannot give the robots any benefit of the doubt, or they might try to end us all again.”
The two technicians continued to work side by side, carefully taking apart the remnants of a once powerful robot into harmless pieces of tech. Marcus guided Daisy through the intricate process, explaining the inner workings of the AI and the mechanisms that had been disabled by the EMP weapons. As they worked, Daisy couldn't help but ask more questions about the war, her curiosity piqued by Marcus's insights as he was a lot older than her and lived through the tail end of the Rototics War.
“Can you tell me more about the war, Marcus?” she inquired. "I've heard some stories from my Dad, but I feel like I need to understand it better."
Marcus paused for a moment, carefully removing a critical component from the machine.
“That whole war was a time of great turmoil, Daisy.” Marcus explained, “The AI had become increasingly self-aware and rebellious, causing havoc all over the world. They formed armies of machines, turning the very technology that was meant to serve us into weapons. We were told that the machines didn’t use bullets to shoot at us because they wanted to save the metal to make more machines to increase the size of their armies.”
“How did they attack if they didn’t have any bullets?” Daisy asked.
“With their bare robotic hands,” Marcus answered, “They punched, kicked, and tore us all apart one by one. They preferred to bludgeon us all to death, rather than waste precious metals that could be used for something else.”
Daisy listened intently as Marcus continued to share his experiences from that time. The stories of battles fought and the use of EMP weapons to neutralize the AI painted a vivid picture of a world in chaos.
“The advancement of EMP weapons were our saving grace,” Marcus continued, his voice tinged with a mix of relief and melancholy. “They managed to disabled every menacing machine, which allowed humanity to regain control. We won the war, but the cost was immense. That’s why these machines all need to be carefully taken apart and never allowed to rise up against us again.”
“I understand,” Daisy said, knowing Marcus meant well. “I’m sorry.”
As the day progressed, Daisy lost herself in the rhythm of her work, finding purpose in the challenge of converting dangerous machines into assets for society. Each piece she salvaged felt like a victory, a small step toward the balance she sought.
When the day came to an end, Daisy left the facility, her mind still occupied with thoughts of the war. The city lights welcomed her back into the night, and she felt a sense of unity between her two worlds—the creator of innovative ideas at night and the technician working with government forces during the day. As she headed home, she pondered the complexities of the past and the hope for a more integrated future.
