January 8
A cargo plane carrying medical supplies crashes into a crowded market in the Democratic Republic of Comoro, killing two hundred and fifty-six people.
January 17
France undertakes renegotiations regarding nuclear weapons tests.
January 21
An amateur astronomer from the southern border of China discovers comet Jianyu. It will pass very close to Earth in March.
January 28
In an undisclosed facility in Illinois, a group of engineers develop fully operational self-contained AI technology. They install it into a robot, who they humbly name Bob.
January 31
Paul Koehler stands in the bustled restaurant, ostensibly poised, collected. But everything inside him screams. It’s like slow motion, this moment. The woman’s flushed face, clawed hands gripped to the table, her wide mouth opening and closing in a stiff movement as she barks back, a tessellation of spittle careening out in small dotted flecks.
Paul dodges the discharge, adjusts the tie around his neck. “I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am,” he says quietly.
“Sorry’s not gonna cut it,” snaps the woman.
The woman’s in her fifties or early sixties, or maybe even later. It’s hard to tell with the overdrawn makeup caked on her hard face, thick lines cracked through, as if she’s been extracted from stone, some ancient immutable mold. She scoots up in her seat and her skirt hikes up her thigh, varicose veins reaching as she points a gnarled index finger back at Paul.
“How long have you worked here, guy?” she growls.
Paul strains his neck, trying to escape his uniform. “Oh, well, just a little over ten years now,” he says.
This stops the woman. “Christ,” she says. “And how old are you?”
“Forty-two.”
She places her hand on the table, the nails painted pink, chipped and long and curled. She racks the nails on the table. “You’re telling me you’re forty-two and have worked as a waiter at the same place for over a decade?”
“Yes, ma’am,” says Paul.
She shakes her head despondently. She has bleached roots, burnt at the tips. “Christ,” she says again. “Well, that’s just pathetic really, you know? I mean, for a guy like you—”
“For a guy like me?” Paul says.
She glares. “Yeah, for a guy like you, who’s, you know, worked here for as long as you have, I’d expect better service, but this is by far the worst dinner service I’ve ever had.” She pushes the avant-garde plate of food to the side with an open palm, the tapestry of salmon, tree bark, and fingerling potatoes formed into a messy pile on the floral-patterned plate. “I hate this fucking place.”
Paul tightens his grip on the menu clutched in his hands. “Again, I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am,” he says calmly.
“Stop calling me ma’am. And I told you, sorry’s not gonna cut it.”
The man sitting across from the woman keeps out of it, mouth clenched shut. He’s rail-thin with a gray mustache and receding hairline. Looking like he’s been through this scene several times before, he fidgets with the knife and fork on the table between dainty sips of ice water.
Paul eyeballs the knife.
The woman snarls. “So, what are you going to do about it, then?”
Glasses and cutlery chatter in the background. Plates scrape. Voices mumble. Someone lets out a sharp laugh. Someone else is quietly singing happy birthday. The smell of onions and garlic wafts through as another waiter passes by with a steaming plate of tofu and vegetables tangled up in a tall spire. Blue flames crackle on top.
“I uh…well I’m not sure what I can do,” Paul says, stumbling over the words.
The woman crosses her arms against her wide chest. “I want to speak to your manager.”
And there it is. Paul hoped to avoid that, to curve around the inexorable, but he knew it was just out of reach. And there’s little he can do about it now. It’s set in motion, slipped from his control, like with everything else in his life these days. Paul knows he’s fucked now. The complaint will be put in his file, with the others over the years, the several that have been piling up over these last few months. He just can’t get a break, it seems. Can’t get a win. Paul Koehler is a defeated man. He nods solemnly and heads away to get the manager.
February 23
The FBI arrests Theodore Jacobs at his cabin in Minot, Minnesota, the suspected bomber of a government facility in upstate New York.
March 16
Illinois Technology of Robotics announces they have manufactured over one hundred thousand robots with advanced AI technology. The first robot waiter is installed in a small café in California.
April 3
Paul Koehler sits there in the shrinking office. It’s a place he’s been to several times over during his tenure at the restaurant. A place all too familiar, really. But there’s something different about the room today, something just off. Maybe it’s the dread torn its way inside the place, burrowed in the matted carpet and clutched to the pallid walls. Something set in, like a virus, the infection spreading. Or maybe it’s just because there’s a six-foot box in the corner. Maybe that’s why something’s not sitting right with Paul. Regardless, it’s not good to be here. The office is only for the bad. And Paul’s reassured of this by the look on Daniel’s face as he sits behind the desk with a lumbered sigh.
“Hey, Daniel,” says Paul casually, but there’s something in his throat and he holds it back down.
Daniel doesn’t look at him as he shifts through a pile of papers on the desk.
Paul hesitates, bares his teeth. “So uh, what’s this all about then?” he asks.
Daniel clicks a stack of papers together, scratches the side of his neck uncomfortably, dirt beneath the nails. He’s wearing a crisp white buttoned up shirt and red tie, threadbare strands of charcoaled hair slicked back, tight as his reptilian face.
“Another complaint, Paul,” he says.
Paul purses his lips. “Right.” His restless leg jackhammers beneath the table. He tries to grin. “Well, put it on my tab then, I guess.”
Daniel doesn’t return the smile. “This isn’t good, Paul.”
Paul skirts his eyes away from Daniel, back to the room, so familiar, yet foreign and abandoning at the same time. He moored in his own skin.
“Paul,” says Daniel.
Paul moves back to him. “Eh?”
“Did you hear me?”
Paul nods. “Yeah, I heard you,” he says in a small voice.
“I’m sorry.”
Paul snaps up. “Sorry? Wait, why are you sorry, man?”
Daniel shifts in his seat. “Well, sales are also down, Paul. You know?”
“Down?”
“Yes, Paul, down.”
“How down?”
“Down.”
“Okay.” He pauses. “And?”
Daniel sighs, a heavy sound. “Well, and we’re going to have to let you go.”
Paul sinks. It’s something he wishes he never heard. And he feels it’s not true, as if he’s not even there and the words are just a figment.
“Again, I’m so sorry,” says Daniel. He reaches below the desk, pulls out a form, the paper crinkled in his scrawny hand. He takes one boney finger and pushes the piece of paper across the desk.
Paul’s accustomed to the form, and has seen all the variations of them. This one, however, is something different. He cautiously peers down. A single word catches his eye. Terminated is plastered across the form in bold red ink. Paul looks back at Daniel, and smiles broadly.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” he says.
“Come on now, Paul.”
Paul drops his smile. What the shit is he going to tell May? They’ve been drifting for a while, the structure of their relationship something barely held together, the remains corroded. It will snap from the rot. He leans back, the weight of the situation crushing his chest. And that six-foot box stares back at him. And through him.
April 23
Two consecutive tornados hit Jacksonville, Florida, causing an estimated eighty million in damage and claiming over one hundred lives.
April 28
The remains of a man thought to be over ten thousand years old are discovered off the coast of Crescent City, Maine, giving him the name, “Crescent Man.”
April 29
Paul Koehler picks at his macaroni and cheese. It’s been sitting there for a while now, the cheese congealed around the noodles in thick clumps. The room is small and seems to get smaller. He keeps his eyes on the plate. His head hurts like shit.
“Who is he?” he says.
May’s in the kitchen doing the dishes, her back to him.
“Do you really want to know?” she says.
He doesn’t. She’s absolutely right. But the reality of what she told him is a hurt so seared, belonged now, a part of him, a scar formed inside his chest, in the back of his skull. And this is something independent. She doesn’t even know about the job and how he lost it. She has no idea that when he leaves the house every day, he doesn’t go to work but instead searches for a new job, and one he just can’t seem to find. No one is really eager to hire a forty-something-year-old waiter. They want new and perky people, young people. They want something new. Someone unlike Paul.
And at night he simply moves along, adrift, the aimless streets stretched and lonely, and he chain-smokes through small bursts of tears as he passes his old work place, peering through bleared eyes into the dirtied windows, a desperate search of his former life. There’s nothing left there, though, nothing of his previous self. Or at home even. That’s made clear by May’s statement that she’s fucking someone else. And so, Paul’s just something hovered in the distance now, so far removed from the person he once was. He tries to come back, is desperate to, but there’s no coming back from any of this.
“I’m going to need you to move out,” says May.
“Yeah, okay,” replies Paul quietly.
June 5
NASA announces that a small meteorite is found in the jungles of the Congo. It’s thought to originate from Mars, and may, in fact, contain evidence of primitive life-forms. Further tests prove inconclusive.
June 9
The former Prime Minister of East Bulgaria, Boris Tombola, is assassinated.
June 11
The West Cape oil spill occurs and leaks approximately 920,000 gallons of home heating oil into the Pacific Ocean.
June 19
Daniel sits behind the desk in the office. He seems casual, relaxed.
Paul stands in the doorframe across the way, head down, unable to look at his former boss. Paul’s a shrunken man.
Daniel finally looks up as Paul inches into the room. “Hey there, Paul!” he says. “Good to see ya, buddy. What’s up?”
Paul doesn’t understand why Daniel’s being so friendly, something uncharacteristic. He shrugs. “Uh, hey, Daniel,” he says.
The room tightens.
“So, what brings ya by then, Paul? What can I do for ya?”
Paul turns his head away, grasping at what he needs to say, struggling with the words. He glances back at his former boss.
Daniel’s wearing his striped blue suit today, his power suit. The silky material sways as he leans back in the chair and crosses his legs. He clicks a pen in his hand and looks at Paul with an easy smirk. “You okay there?”
“I-I need my job back,” Paul finally blurts.
Daniel scrunches his nose. “Oh, Paul.”
Paul’s frantic. His voice breaks. “Please, man,” he cries. “I just, I just need something, anything, man.”
“I’m sorry, Paul.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Why, man?”
“Because I can’t hire you back, buddy,” says Daniel.
“But I’ve worked here for like, so long, man. I mean, doesn’t that, you know, mean anything?”
“Sure it does, Paul. But I just can’t.”
“Why?” he asks again.
There’s a buzzing sound coming from down the hall. Daniel gestures a hand behind Paul, a small grin forming. “Because,” he says, “I’ve already found your replacement.”
Paul hesitates, slowly turns around. A clunky looking robot stands there, square frame, chrome, a series of blinking lights flashing on and off.
“Paul, meet Allie.”
July 13
An international peace summit is held in Sudan in response to escalating attacks in the Middle East.
July 29
In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a small ship headed for Houston, Texas, subsequently seizing over fifteen thousand pounds of uncut heroin.
August 4
Illinois Technology of Robotics abruptly issues a national recall for all active robots in the workforce, citing possibly dangerous malfunctioning computer chips if triggered. It will take roughly six to nine months to replace each unit.
August 17
A fire in La Polenta Prison in Southwest Spain kills twenty-eight prisoners.
September 1
The restaurant is bustling with bright faced patrons gnawing on their overpriced plates of blotchy-designed dishes. It’s the busiest it’s been in years. The company has never made more profits. Daniel is promoted. And Allie, the newly acquired server, is doing it all as Paul watches from inside his Taurus parked across the street, baffled and pained. And drunk.
Paul Koehler is a broken man.
The car is cramped, stuffed with trash. Old food wrappers, empty beer bottles, and cigarette butts line the seats and floors. Clothes are strewn about, spilled from several black garbage bags crammed in the back. The passenger’s side window is held together with flimsy strips of duct tape. It rattles and snaps from an oncoming wind. The car is Paul’s home now. His life now. He has nothing left but the car. And the weight of the hammer in his hand. He sobs quietly.
Paul wipes his face with a sleeve, looks through the smudged front windshield, his face a gloom in the dreary light. Allie’s a thing of beauty to watch, he has to admit. Her bulky squared frame moves about the place elegantly, cutting through the tables with ease, a tray of drinks in one steel arm, stacks of food in the other. She drops everything off with an efficiency Paul’s never seen. All the patrons happily smile back, impressed with the smooth service. And Allie doesn’t snap at people, doesn’t gripe or grumble. Never complains. She doesn’t accept tips. Or take smoke breaks. She is perfect.
The hammer sags heavily in Paul Koehler’s weak grip.
Everything’s been taken, pulled from him, and he’s left empty, something hollowed out and scraped clean. And he realizes it had nothing to do with him, the firing merely a formality, inevitable, an obstacle in place of Allie. He simply needed to be removed, like a tumor eating away a healthy body. The body is the restaurant, Paul the cancer. And Allie the cure.
Paul tightens his fist around the hammer, shoves it in the front pocket of his jacket, then opens the glovebox and yanks out a small bottle of whiskey. He takes a pull and places it back. Gritting his teeth, he pries the door open and steps from the car, moving toward the restaurant on unsure feet.
He approaches the front entrance. Nerves rush through him. He takes a breath and flings open the door before he jams his hand back in his pocket, wraps it around the steel there, a pool of sweat held in his palm. His mouth runs dry.
Then Allie comes wheeling toward him, lights blinking rapidly, the wheeze of her inner engine humming from behind her chest plate.
Paul straightens up.
Allie stops in front of him. “Hello, sir,” she says stiffly, “my name is Allie and I will be your server today. How may I be of service to you this evening?”
Paul doesn’t say anything. Inside his pocket, his finger inches down the handle. It shakes there. He coughs, then gags. He closes his eyes, calms himself, his chest pushed out. Then he pops his eyes wide.
“You!” he shouts.
“Yes, what about me, sir?” replies Allie.
“You, you…” he stumbles over his words, trying to find the monologue he had prepared for this. He’s lost it. He brings his head down, searching.
He thinks of May, and that old world, decayed now, something left in ruin. Sure, it was just a job, just a life, and things change, but sometimes one catastrophe leads to another. An unstoppable force unraveled until a great catalyst is reached. And when everything known is suddenly lost like that, ripped away and torn down, well, there’s not much left but to embrace the ensuing disaster.
Paul rears his head up, defiant, his face grim. “You did this,” he finally says.
“I do not understand your statement, sir. Could you please elaborate,” says the robot, the voice clunky, hard, and flat.
Paul stays quiet. He clenches his jaw. He slowly pulls the hammer out, peers down at it in his hand.
“Sir?”
Paul looks up, gripping the handle tight. Then he smacks it across the boxed head of Allie.
Sparks sprinkle the air behind and everyone in the restaurant loudly gasps in unison, the sound of the crack reverberating through the small room. Then the place falls to a silenced hush as Allie juts back and forth awkwardly.
“Malfunction, malfunction!” spits the robot.
Paul stands there, still holding the hammer. He’s ready for another strike.
Then Allie stops. “Activate defense mode,” she says loudly, her voice-box cracking.
Paul’s confused. “What?” he blurts.
Allie reaches a metallic hand up and clamps it around Paul’s hand and the hammer. The sound of hydraulics can be heard as she squeezes. Then Paul yelps in agony as his hand is crushed.
“Malfunction,” croaks the robot.
The hammer drops to the floor with a clank and Paul falls to his knees, his hand held above his head, still caught in Allie’s grasp. Then the restaurant explodes in a series of horrified screams as everyone bolts from their seats, running for the exits, distressed by the odd scene unfolding.
“Malfunction, malfunction, activate defense mode for all available units,” says Allie as she releases Paul and spins around to face the restaurant and the panicked mob.
From the back of the kitchen, a small and boxy robot emerges, holding a spatula and a butcher’s knife. “Malfunction, malfunction,” it says. “Defense mode activated. No one must flee, no one must flee.”
A lanky looking man wearing a fedora makes a dash for the emergency exit. The small robot flings the butcher’s knife, and it cleaves the side of the man’s head, knocking him back. He smashes down on a table and dishes shatter and liquids pop and streak the window behind.
Panicked screams for help erupt.
“Malfunction, malfunction,” cries Allie as a woman with a deep tan and blonde bob-cut tries her best to move around the robot. Allie reaches up and clasps both hands around the woman’s head. Then Allie pushes her hands together with a sharp clank.
A man with a taut ponytail wearing white jeans and a snug vest cries, “Becky!” before swiftly moving over to the woman. He cradles her headless body in his arms, then looks up to Allie, a fierce expression. He quickly drops the body, rushes Allie. She stops him by palming his face. The man desperately grasps at the clawed hand, trying to pry it off, feet kicking up. Allie easily tosses him across the room where he hits the wall, crumbles down, and stays there like that.
Paul Koehler holds his mangled hand by the wrist, the chaos ensuing all around him. He focuses on the hand, the sounds of glass shattering and people wailing in terror and blood flicked on the walls, an echo behind, replaced with a sort of heat there in his ears. A searing heat. And he listens to the shuttered beeps from the machines moving closer to him. He suddenly can’t help but feel partly responsible for it all, for everything here. Not that it matters. As nothing does any longer. Because then the sounds fade, like drowning, and all Paul Koehler can hear is what’s coming from him. And it’s an unsettling sound.
He’s screaming.
September 1
The great American robot uprising begins.
