A Choice of Lotteries – Part 2
Written by John Ink2Quill
www.ink2quill.com

A gust of cool air welcomed us like it did most hot days at the Milan Cafe with the owner, Rusty, wiping down tables like a regular employee. He waved to us from across the room and pointed to a pair of armchairs so plush they might as well have been clouds floating above the floor. However, today was different than most other days because the normally jovial and gregarious, Rusty looked distracted and even bothered. His arms made wide arcs across the table he wiped while his eyes remained glued on the two employee droids that were fixtures for as far back as I could remember. I stared at him while Betty put down her tablet on her seat.

“You want coffee or tea today?” Betty said as she walked over to the register.

“Coffee. Ice coffee, why not?” I said with my eyes on Rusty.

Milan’s Cafe has been around the neighborhood for as long as I can remember. I cherish the fond memories of pressing my nose against the glass, mesmerized by the pastries and cakes, as if they would float through the glass and into my hand. I remember the way Rusty smiled at everyone who walked in. I remember how cordial and calm his employee robots Kupro and Drato were to me and everyone else. The two robots looked identical back then before Kupro lost his hand and any right to maintenance or upgrade insurance. The companies that built these semi-sentient robots expected Rusty to trade them in or throw them in a dump to be crushed into cubes or rectangles with their voice boxes removed first so as not to offend. Rusty ignored convention and kept the aging robots procuring their replacement parts from any black market source he could find anywhere. But parts became harder to find as technology kept changing and advancing until one day Rusty could no longer find a replacement hand that would fit Kupro. From then on other parts of the robots began to degrade. Parts on the inside like the gyroscopic balancing system which was once the cutting edge of technology. This made them prone to falling over every once and a while. The customers never minded and would help them back to their feet, no harm, no foul, but every fall took a toll on Rusty. Every accident was like a kind of countdown to the day when they would no longer be able to stand up again. He loved them and so did we.

“Should such a day ever come when Kup and Drat could no longer get up and walk I’m sure Rusty would get them wheelchairs.” I reassured myself while swallowing the growing lump in my throat.

I watched him eventually throw down his towel and walk over to the two robots with a concerned look on his face. Drato was talking to Kupro who reached for a cup with a stub where his hand once was. He reached for the cup over and over again as if persistence would grow him a new hand of beautiful brass colored, tubular fingers and brass colored gears for knuckles. Rusty spoke to them in a low voice and they nodded their brass looking, cylindrical heads with eyes like light bulbs from XXth century lamps, rapidly blinking brass colored eyelids of flexible metal.

I watched Kupro nod as Rusty spoke silently to both of them as if he repeated something he told them earlier but they had forgotten. He often spoke very softly to them because their hearing had remained excellent over the years. Their hearing was just as good as on their first day alive, so to speak. Any conversation within 6 meters be it a whisper or a garbled shout was heard by their brass cupped ears with as good an accuracy as any robot’s hearing today, maybe even better. Rusty looked up and pointed to me and the two robots waved energetically.

I waved back. “Hi.” I said in a low voice knowing they did not hear me because of the distance between but could read my lips.

The two robots that looked more like a pile of brass pipes and gears thrown together into the shape of a person walked toward me. They lacked skin or any protective covering and as a result they occasionally leaked lubricant but nobody minded. Even when some of their lubricant stained the clothes of some of the locals no fuss was made of it. Decades ago these were the pinnacle of robotic achievement and hailed as the most versatile of robots who could work at a job or in the home. Consumers gobbled these models up when they were the latest thing. But now, most of the younger generations have never even seen one except on the screen.

They walked over and the elastic metal around their mouths stretched into a wide smile.

“What will you be having today Nali?” Drato said as he took the bag off my shoulder and layed it down on the sofa I was to sit in.

“I’m good. We’re both good. Betty went to order at the register. How are you two today?” I asked.

Kupro stepped forward past Drato. “We are fine. It’s just some of our parts have degraded. You know how it is.” He said looking down while waving his hands over his body of pipes, gears and organ circuit sacs.

“I know what you mean Kup. I found two gray hairs yesterday.” I said.

The two robots placed their hands over their mouths and their voice boxes made a teeth sucking sound.

“I’m sorry Nali.” Kupro said.

“Yeah I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want you to start losing your abilities like we are.” Datro said.

I cleared my throat to stop tears from welling up in my eyes.

Rusty called the robots away as Betty approached. She put down our drinks on the table in front of me and sat down without removing her coat. She waived to the departing robots and smiled.

“So tell me what ever made you play that lottery of all the lotteries out there?” She said wasting no time with pleasantries about the taste of my coffee or when the last time I was in Milan’s was.

I exhaled and crossed my legs before I took a sip of my ice coffee. If she wanted to judge my life choices she would have to wait and watch me enjoy a sip of my coffee first.

“This is so perfect.” I said, my eyes darting down to my iced coffee then back up at Betty.

She said nothing but smiled from ear to ear. Her face looked bigger and rounder than it already was when she smiled.

I sighed.

My shoulders sank without me intending to do so. “I mean look around Betty. Rusty can’t get parts for Kup and Drat because he’s being pushed to buy the newest and latest. I can’t do anything with all the Gizmos in my life. You must remember what life was like before the Gizmos?” I blurted out.

Betty noded. “I do.” She said with a smile.

I took a long sip of my iced coffee and leaned closer to her. I had known Betty nearly my whole life. She was close to the same age as my parents and would tell them every bit of mischief she witnesses me and my group of friends perpetrate. Many a time me or one of my gang of friends would come home to screaming parents because of her but those were memories you laugh at as adults. She was alive before the world went Gizmo crazy, just like our parents, and was my only link to that long gone world. Her stories were like gold, like still having my parents in my life.

“Did I ever tell you how when the first drones appeared over cities to protect us.” She said and made air quotes. “That people would shoot them down.” She continued.

“You never told me that.” I said.

I leaned in closer so I would catch every sound and syllable she made.

She nodded. “Yes. At first they started arrested the poor but then cameras revealed that everyone was doing it. Even my grandmother was caught doing it. That’s how we found out she was such a good shot. Until then she was Angel Salley our grandmother and baker of the world’s best chocolate chip cookies.” She said.

“No way Betty. Go grandma.” I said raising a fist in the air like the brave protesters of old.

Betty licked her lips and slowly nodded. She took and sip of her tea and I sipped my ice coffee.

She coughed a laugh. “We found out that the notches on her bed post were not the lovers she took after Grandpa passed away but drones she downed. She became a kind of local celebrity.” She said.

“No freakin’ way.” I said offering her a napkin from the stack at the center of the small, round table in front of us.

Betty nodded as she spoke. “We figure that her alone, with all the drones she downed, she set the surveillance program back at least several years.” Betty said.

“If I was alive back then I would have outdone your grandmother. I would have stopped the program entirely.” I said taking a long sip of my coffee after I spoke.

“You would do no such thing. Most of those protesters died horrible deaths in jail or were denied important services and so died because of it.” She said.

“Like my parents?” I said not intending for my remark to be a question that would drudge up events from my past.

“Like your parents.” She repeated while nodding. “They were denied health insurance and it killed them.” She said crossing her arms after she spoke.

I looked into my coffee and pushed the ice cubes down with my straw and tried not to remember their final days.

Betty sighed.

“Don’t be upset. They were such good people and they’re in a better place.” She said with regret in her voice.

A silence that felt like eternity fell over our conversation.

“I want to get away from this decrepit place.” I finally said.

“A lot of those ads for a better life in the stars are bogus. Most people that travel to the stars are never, ever heard form again.” She said.

“Yes but some trips are better than others. I’ve been studying this question of which are the best colonies out there and I think I’ve figured it out.” I began. “It is true that most colonies don’t work and collapse but some colonies that have certain markers have a much better chance at success.” I said.

Betty took a long sip while I spoke.

“They say you can’t come back because there are never any shuttles back.” She said.

“Yes, but you can travel between colonies in some parts of space and like I said, if you watch and study certain markers the way analysts study investments your chances improve greatly.” I said.

Betty leaned back in her chair and her eyes opened wide. As scared or as apprehensive as she was to the idea of leaving our Globe, memories of a life without Gizmos, constant surveillance and fake autonomy would always leave that yearning to return to that life she had known.

I had piqued her curiosity.

“Which colony did you have in mind leaving to?” She asked.

Written by John Ink2Quill

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