Elaine Chang (11) | STAFF REPORTER
Somewhere, deep in the heart of the valley of skyscrapers, buried amongst veils of post-industrialist dust and attempting to be heard amidst sound-stifling concrete deposits, was a low, thumping noise.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
And then it would pause.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
And it would begin once more.
JSM9987 was engraved into the bronze-plated belly of the machine— Janitorial Services Module, the nine thousand and eighty-seventh copy of the management module built to pick up industrial scraps from the corpse of the planet that had once been the only feasible home of all life.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
With each step, the layer of concrete sediment covering the ground emitted a cloud of dust from beneath its humanoid feet, surrounding the lower half of the machine with fine, white particles of debris. Each step was mechanical and calculated, with no complex mechanism to determine a path of movement. It was programmed with only two central commands: move and collect.
Move and collect. Move and collect. Hundreds of thousands of these machines were moving and collecting around the Earth with a stunning amount of efficiency.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
One artificial heartbeat, thrumming across the planet and replacing the hollow cavity where a real heart once lay.
A low, constant mechanical whirring noise exuded from the cameras in its eyes— built to scan for the metallic composition of items in order to deduce their potential to be utilized for outer-space colonization projects. Just then, its cameras’ sensors seem to spot a prospective scrap amongst the monotonous debris.
A cranking noise punctuated the, mostly silent, air as the machine extended one heavy robotic arm towards a slab of fallen concrete. The sound of stone scraping and then a resounding crash rang out through the corpse of a building as the robot moved the chunk of rock.
Beep. Beep.
The sensor urgently chirped at the sight of a large piece of steel, perhaps the remnants of a car frame, and the robot collected the piece to be compressed and stored in the hollow chamber of its belly.
Beep. Beep.
Its sensors picked up another object. The whirring noises seemed to reach a consensus about the object, then quickly become confused and begin to analyze its components again. The robot stood idly by as its programming struggled to comprehend what was in front of it: a pile of soil and debris from which a green sprout feebly outstretched its arms.
The robot could scarcely comprehend the color of the thing; despite having been programmed to recognize the minute nuance between elephant gray and slate gray, it struggled to register the singular color of the sprout.
The cameras quickly became restless from the arduous task of comprehending the plant and declared it useless. Instantly, the robot was once again ready to follow its move command.
Thump.
The thunderous step caused the stem of the sprout to bow precariously as it shook against the ginormous force imposed against it.
Thump.
Thump.
As the robot moved away, the sprout seemed to straighten once more.
