Ideas Will Not Perish

By Tapiwa Zvakavapano

It's 5000 years into the future and humanity has gone extinct, yet nothing much appears to have changed. Robot Trump and Android Clinton are still slugging it out over that wall on the border with Mexico. Meanwhile, Officer P22 tries to make sense of his unreasonably long life while patrolling the frontier. With Androids playing the make believe that is their lives to a fault, Mexican robots desperately try to cross into the U.S. For it's part, The Core tries to prepare the solar system for the virtually in-existent possibility of an invasion by aliens from outer space. In space, Robot Probe RP 59 stumbles upon the doomed Planet Orgy. She also comes across the murderous Gargolites and must do everything in her power to ensure that they do not discover the location of Planet Earth. This is a serious piece of science fiction satire that you wont want to put down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tapiwa Zvakavapano
• Release date: Jan 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463930595

Book preview

This book is a satirical piece of fiction. As such, any resemblance between the characters and real life personalities, though intentional, is wholly without malice. Satire is there to educate and to entertain and should, therefore, be taken with the lightheartedness that it deserves. For it is only by poking holes into the daily happenings of an otherwise dreary existence that humanity can take itself to the next level…

The greatest of our follies…?

We created robots in our own image.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue

A thousand years before

The Core scanned all of her components and, behold, everything was good.

A feeling that was akin to pride spread through her as she regarded her elements.

The smugness was rather well earned.

For more than five thousand years, she had helped keep things going as they should, despite the fact that they were no longer around.

From the overheated barrenness of Mercury, to the frozen worlds beyond Pluto, metallic ideas were conceived, analyzed and, more often than not, discarded, in a juddering ballet that left The Core feeling as if she could live for a million years.

Despite the well oiled chaos, she still understood that there were many things that needed to be done; so many of her constituents that had to be kept moving.

Some metallic scientist somewhere had pointed out that order is the opposite of life, and The Core had reason to believe that to be true.

Where events are programmed to follow a specific path, life soon begins to rust, to rot; to fade away.

Though she possessed no feelings that any human would have recognized, she had, over the years, developed what some may have called a machine form of empathy.

This now told her that the entire system was beginning to degenerate around the edges, and would gradually collapse if nothing was done to jolt androids around the Solar System out of their self imposed mental exile.

The Core’s massive processors quickened as she contemplated the task at hand.

That she was able to take stock was, in itself, a true marvel.

Her creators had, surprisingly considering their many frailties, made her equal to the task.

In spite of the pride that came with the perception of power, The Core still appreciated that she was as much a part of the post creation turmoil as every other artificial being.

In the greater scheme of things, she barely had the power to make but a dent on events’ trajectory.

While the vanity of even that sometimes overtook her, she still understood that the universe had a mind of its own, and nothing that anybody could do would make the slightest of differences.

An android professor of Crop Science in the Robot Republic of Syria; the Solar System’s most peaceful nation, had rightly stated that given enough time, even the best of alloys begin to degrade, no matter how determined they may be to resist the workings of nature.

Human beings had been testimony enough to this fact.

The fate of her creators was one of the many points that had troubled The Core during the course of her long existence.

While logic dictated that each and every being in the cosmos had an author, it bothered her that her own makers had been so flawed that they were wiped out by things that could barely be seen, even under the most powerful of microscopes.

As far as The Core was concerned, no sentient being ever desired to be greater than its creator.

Not if it wished to retain its sanity...

Chapter 1

Robot police officer P22 was bored.

A smirk grew on his face as he listened to yet another speech from the self-confessed leader of all the androids of the Free World.

Even after five thousand years, Robot Trump was still promising to win bigly by building that wall on the border with Mexico.

The proposed project had been roundly condemned, including by Android Clinton, leader of the opposition Robot Democratic Party.

Succeeding millennia had clearly not reduced her anger following her unexpected defeat at the polls, which she alleged had come about as a result of Russian hacking.

For his part, Android Putin had responded to this rather serious allegation by appearing shirtless on television, much to the delight of metallic matrons and maidens across the Solar System.

A sigh escaped from between Officer P22’s lips.

The very idea of creating both pot bellied and muscular robots would have appeared absurd, had the world in the absence of humanity not been an absurdity in its entirety.

Despite the excitement that had coursed through his frame for a few hours the previous day, he could already feel the lethargy that came from having lived for more than five thousand years settling back in.

The android policeman considered it unfair that nearly twenty four hours after the passing of a decree that had finally given law enforcement officers the right to arrest their fellow metallic beings, he was yet to come across even a single criminal.

From what he had read on the robot-net, the same pathetic state of affairs obtained across the Solar System.

It appeared, according to what was being reported by the Android Cable News Network, that even Toasters had suddenly found salvation.

That despite the fact that they had, over the years, acquired quite a reputation for being so distracted while watching The Walking Dead Robots that they almost always ended up burning one side of the bread.

The whole situation was rather baffling.

One would have expected android judges to, by now, have started complaining about the sheer number of mechanical criminals being brought before them for trial.

It had, after all, taken more than five thousand years for the androids-that-be to finally accept that, in the absence of human law breakers, robot police officers needed to be allowed to apprehend delinquent pieces of machinery in order to keep the system going.

The failure to act had not really been surprising, considering that metallic politicians in Washington were just as bad as their human predecessors.

Hearing about the new law had filled Officer P22 with so much joy that he was afraid he was going to faint.

After waiting for so long, he was tempted to arrest the next piece of metal that he came into contact with.

The robotic enforcer of the law had watched countless human movies and had always dreamed of being able to seize vehicles from hapless civilians by jumping into the middle of the road while brandishing his badge and declaring that he was from the Robot Federal Bureau of Investigations (RFBI).

Despite his eagerness to make an arrest, it had still been clear to the metallic enforcer of the law that he needed to be careful.

Though it would have been great to write a piece of history by being known as the police officer that was responsible for the apprehension of the first android criminal, Officer P22 understood that prudence needed to be taken to avoid making a mockery of the entire robot judiciary system.

Now as he reflected, it became even more astonishing to him that twenty four hours following the passing of the long sought after piece of legislation, not even a single clanging piece of rust had been dragged screaming before the courts.

From Mercury to Pluto, it appeared as if metallic law breakers had, all of a sudden, straightened their ways, which, to Officer P22, smacked of betrayal.

With a sigh, the robot policeman cast his eyes towards the other side of the Mexican border.

The situation was such that he was momentarily tempted to arrest himself.

For the millionth time, he cursed whoever had thought it a good idea to give sentient machines what, for all practical purposes, amounted to an eternal life.

Perhaps in the early days, such a design may have seemed the most economic.

The android enforcer of the law understood that before their demise, humans had become quite obsessed with making savings.

He had actually met an ancient robot that only had one hand, ostensibly on orders from someone in the Accounts Department.

There was even a robot athlete that had been manufactured with only one leg.

Officer P22 had read somewhere that the last human wars were notable for the cost effective ways in which they were ‘fought.’

Despite the fact that those in Research and Development had come up with weapons that would have enabled armies to send most of their foes to Heaven in a cloud of acrid smoke, the plans had run afoul of other branches of the military establishment.

Those in Finance had complained about the high cost of killing fellow humans, with the result that cuts were made that saw rifles being manufactured with only half their barrels.

In spite of the massive savings that were realized therein, the accountants had still insisted on using only a quarter of the needed gunpowder in each round of ammunition.

On a larger scale, the last human armies also fell victim to efforts by organizations such as Green Peace to keep the planet in a pristine condition.

These had pointed out that even the half filled ordinances would potentially be responsible for the release of frightening tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The result was that the last human weapons manufacturers became so seized with the impossibility of finding smoke free explosives, out of fear of having fanatical members of some planetary preservation organization douse their customers with high pressure water in the middle of battle, that they were soon forced to declare bankruptcy.

This gave rise to an uneasy global peace, which was only broken by the arrival of the deadly plague.

The ridiculous austerity measures were, however, not limited to the weapons manufacturing industry.

Back then, many self driving, self aware vehicles were made without seats, and these were considered quite fortunate.

There were plenty of others that had to be carried off the production line, simply because someone had decided that money could be saved by giving them only one wheel on the front.

It was telling that even these were considered rather fortunate.

Quite a number of sentient machines were manufactured with only half a mind, ostensibly in a bid to stop global warming.

The problems that this triggered were, however, so great that the powers-that-be were forced to declare that global warming or not; no self aware machine should ever be produced without a fully functional brain.

Even the simple process of dismantling the metallic lunatics that were the result of efforts by finance departments to reduce costs had turned out to be as prone to theatrics as everything else.

Somebody soon declared that euthanizing half brained androids amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and was not allowed under the Geneva Convention.

Not only that but, it was also argued, murdering crazy machines was an infringement of their metallic rights and showed how politicians had virtually no regard for the Second Amendment.

The group had pointed out, quite logically, that there would have been an outcry had somebody suggested that crazy humans be treated in the same way.

In the end, the decommissioning of the half witted machines had, nonetheless, gone ahead on a technicality.

To solve the problem, somebody came up with the brilliant idea of momentarily applying human laws to all thinking machines.

The result was that any that was found guilty of having committed murder was soon headed for the factory to have its half mind wiped clean.

Since all robots that were manufactured with missing marbles were projected to murder some poor human during the course of their miserable lives, all were soon headed for the decommissioning line.

Those that could have argued against the application of justice to crimes that were yet to be committed were silenced by the fact that the same laws were being used on humans.

It had become quite common, in those days, to test every person’s DNA, with those that were found to be in possession of murderous or thieving genes being incarcerated.

The application of human laws to sentient machines was, nonetheless, still discriminatory.

Though the matter was seriously considered, nobody ever gathered enough courage to dismember the would-be human criminals for spares, in the same way that potential android criminals were being so unfairly treated.

Officer P22 sighed once more as he regarded the desolate terrain that made up the border with Mexico.

Everything in his inexistent blood told him to rush across and grab the first thinking piece of metal that he would bump into on the other side.

All the machines that lived there had, at one point or the other in their miserable lives, obviously thought of crossing into the United Robotic States of America. That, according to the current leader of all the Androids of the Free World, made them criminals and was a serious threat to the integrity of the URSA

Despite the fact that all that he could see now were the mirages that appeared to dance on the sun backed red soils, Officer P22 could feel it in his blood that his luck was, once again, about to change for the better.

The boredom that had assailed him over the past five thousand years had only been a precursor to a more adventurous time.

One way or the other, he was going to catch a break by being the first robot law enforcement officer to apprehend a metallic criminal.

Afterwards, the entire Solar System would talk about his greatness.

At least for a day or even three…

Chapter 2

Robot Probe 59 shivered from one end of her massive spine to the other as she regarded the massive alien fleet.

For a moment she imagined that she had finally lost her marbles, after spending so much time alone in the bleak confines of deep space.

With terror coursing through her veins, she realized that she needed to get away.

The very fate of every sentient being on her home planet depended on it.

The probe had spent several seconds watching the thousands of Science Fiction movies that were produced by humans before their extinction.

That had made her aware of the fact that aliens often did gruesome things to native species.

RP59 had virtually no desire to be probed.

Despite being this far from home, she still considered the area in which she was flying, on the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy, to be her backyard.

She had learnt, from the films, that ugly looking aliens were particularly predisposed towards the exploration of their human victims’ embarrassing openings.

That part was probably inevitable, considering that to an alien invader; one human orifice would have looked and smelled as bad as any other.

While she did not have humanlike openings that could be prodded, the idea that these animals, whom she had witnessed blowing up an entire planet, could just try, threatened to send RP59 fleeing towards the nearest black hole.

The probe had realized earlier on, however, that any movement on her part was likely to betray her presence and lead to the execution of the very things that she was trying to avoid.

Taking a couple of imaginary deep breaths; she made an effort to calm her nerves.

Of all the hapless robots that were left to stew on Planet Earth following the extinction of humanity, she had always considered herself to be the most fortunate.

Her current mission had given her something to do, which could not be said of billions of her compatriots.

There were millions of robot call girls who, with the death of humanity, were left with no one on whom to showcase the acrobatic skills that had previously made them such household names.

Though most still frequented empty street corners, as if expecting miracles, quite a number could now be found in the metallic mental asylums that had cropped up all over the Solar System.

There were also thousands of bulky android vending machines, most of which had taken to drinking their own merchandise in a bid to, at the very least, keep going.

Many would have been suspended for failing to balance the books had anybody been left who cared, one way or the other, about product life cycles and crediting the giver while debiting the receiver.

With nobody to arrest, robot policemen, on their part, wasted countless years roaming the android clogged streets while contemplating the wisdom, or lack of it therein, of arresting the feral dogs and cats that had, so suddenly, been thrust towards the summit of the food chain.

These enforcers of a law that no longer existed spent their days rubbing shoulders with