Gynoids of Times:  Disaster-Struck

by Elliot Bowers

To understand the mess that Vicki, the village doctor and I lived with, I suppose you will have to know a little background. That is, you will have to know a little about the evil that covers the land. I mean this more than literally. There is an evil that coated this land for decades. This evil is soaked into the soil. And, of course, this evil hovers in a faint mist above the parry grasses as the sun sets over the Midwestern plains. The evil has a horrible smell over the land; it is a faint odor that faintly fills nostrils and puts a feeling of dread in stomachs. This evil hates and is hated.

And this evil truly is hated by anything living. The evil that soaks and coats the land is a bane of living creatures. When concentrations of these evil mists gather on warm days, entire flocks of land-roaming creatures flee from them. At least, the remaining animals there are these days can flee from these mists. If they do not, animals caught in these mists suffocate and fall sick. That is the severity of this evil that covers the land and our reality. It stinks, it really does. This evil is what makes life so harsh these days. Were it not for this evil, life would have been as it was. Life on the land would have continued on as usual: farming and all. But since this evil reached high levels during the disaster, we all live harder lives. Of course, forty years ago, it was not called evil. No, it was called "pollution." It made the chemical trash that filled the atmosphere sound more sanitary, giving it such a scientific name. And those people, sitting in their big and wasteful homes, would argue about this "pollution" as if it were far and away. They held gigantic meetings. They spoke on the radio. And they, the people of the grand houses and expensive (but flimsy) clothing only made minor and weak steps to deal with the pollution.

Meanwhile, for decades, the pollution began to destroy their talk. As a result of the excess pollution, life in the cities became impossible. Whereas horses were eliminated from cities centuries ago, cities eventually became so uninhabitable that few would live there. Not even Vicki could "live" long unexposed in the cities. There were major exoduses to the countryside. And the expensive people who wore the expensive clothing condemned this move. They damned every moment of it, as the poor and overworked poor people of the rotting and evil-soaked cities simply fled.

The expensively-dressed people, the people who never had their hands or heads in honest labor, used their talk to try to keep the people in the cities. They used their expensive talk to order the police--under new laws--to keep the people in the cities. But it was far too much. No one wanted the cities, no one. The talkers, in their expensive and flimsy clothing, then used brutality to keep people in the cities. They said that "having a large urban population" was "vital to the prosperity of America." Cities, they claimed, were for everyone's benefit. And then, the Disaster finally struck.

When people fled the cities, no amount of brute force would keep them in. As the talkers "justified" their cruelty by pointing out that "prosperity" was at risk, the brutality of government was harming and killing increasingly more people. But soon, the military forces under the command of the expensive talkers resisted. They would no longer obey the cruel orders of trying to keep people in the evil-coated cities. And soon, the expensive talkers themselves were to face slaughter. The wealthy families of those expensive talkers were overthrown in revolution. I do mean that: revolution!

The expensive talkers tried to flee, but those that once ruled the cities could not escape the madness of the evil-coated cities. Their once-loyal bodyguards turned on them. They could not flee in cars; their cars were too easily identified and destroyed. Then, the talkers were silenced. There was no more talk by expensively-dressed wealthy people in flimsy clothing telling us how to live. And the police officers joined the people in fleeing. The cities became silent and ungoverned.

That explained it; the cities became silent. Most people were unwilling to continue to live in such evil and tainted areas. And when government fled, that was the end of terrible and evil talk. But life still managed to eke out a bare living in the city. And it took amazing abilities to survive the cities. Perhaps, I may hint, it took more than human strength against strife to survive. For a time, that was exactly what Vicki did with the help of two human beings.

The sun had not yet risen over the blighted city-scape, but a small and somewhat waif-like figure of a being was at work in an 11th story apartment. This little person was "housecleaning." But this was a sort of cleaning more advanced--and necessary--than it was centuries earlier. Working quite tirelessly, this person was doing what "she" could in maintaining the inhabitability of the two-bedroom apartment in this part of the American Midwest. If she didn't, then her guardians would die due to the poisons that saturated the air of the outside.

First, the waif--called Vicki--had to quickly remove one heavily-modified air conditioner from a window, then close the window. In almost a blur of motion, Vicki removed the front cover of the air conditioner with a screw driver. Vicki then removed the electrostatic filters, dipped them in a cleaning solution, then checked the viability of the secondary carbon filters deep within the innards of the air conditioner--still good. Then Vicki re-assembled the air conditioner. This was vital to filtering the heavily-polluted air of the outside. Then, Vicki returned the air conditioner to the window. Having done that, Vicki checked the status of a second air conditioner. She would have to go out soon to replace the electrostatic and carbon filters on that one.

Keeping people alive and well in such an environment meant a bit of effort. But, as the two people Vicki stayed with kept her entertained and maintained, she wanted to keep them alive. She was doing what any person would do for her pets.

Next, Vicki checked the food supply. She opened the refrigerator. The food contained within was selected and scavenged for maximum nutritional value and imperishability: beans, rice, compact breads, and powdered milk. The apartment, by the way, had a low supply of self-contained energy. It was jury-rigged to have internal power. With the knowledge of "Gramps," (one of the people Vicki looked after) and the physical capabilities of Vicki's myogel and RTGs, they had been able to re-supply electricity to the apartment: Vicki ran swiftly and tirelessly around the city to scavenge dozens of pacemaker batteries from abandoned hospitals and other medical facilities. Gramps rigged them to a makeshift power grid in the apartment (extension cords insulated with masking tape). In fact, the nature of the power supply was such that Gramps said it would probably outlive him.

Calculating a bit, Vicki found that the food supply would last two people another week--two if ever-so-carefully rationed. The water supply, jugs of commercial "spring water" gleaned from abandoned city buildings, would last just as long. Vicki took out foodstuffs for a morning's breakfast and began to prepare it. In addition to what she calculated was needed for two elderly people in terms of carbohydrates, proteins, minerals and etcetera, Vicki tossed in some synthesized compounds to add flavor. Vicki had aesthetics to understand some rudiments of "flavor," even if aesthetics were put late into her creation. Using the makeshift power grid, Vicki heated the food.

Breakfast was done; Vicki then moved on to the lower priority of sanitation. Vicki swept, cleaned, handled trash and other basics at a moderate pace. She would have moved faster, but her activity was prolonged enough to awaken Gramps and Grandma. Grandpa was awakened, in fact, by the shifting Vicki made. He headed over to the washbasin, made himself presentable (as if necessary) and went into the small living room to greet Vicki.

"Good morning, my little lady!" he exclaimed. Grandpa never grew tired of this four-foot wonder, this small wonder, that kept him and his wife alive in such a toxins and poisons-soaked city. They could not escape or survive the effort to escape, so they had to stay. Vicki was necessary to their survival.

Vicki took a few more moments to rapidly finish. She then returned, "Good morning, Gramps."

Gramps knew he wasn't her grandfather, and it wasn't possible for him to be it. However, he was close enough. "So, my darling, how is your health?"

Vicki paused for a moment, internal diagnostics went to work. After a moment, Vicki said, "Internally, I am feeling fine. That catch in my voice seems to have subsided a bit."

"The sulfur in the air, I'm afraid, did that to you," responded Gramps. "What about your skin?"

Vicki looked at the surfaces of her arms: "It seems slightly cracked, due to exposure on that last run for supplies."

Grandpa went into a back room, took a sealed bucket of liquid and a brush, and returned to the living room. "Here," said Gramps. "Since only your exposed skin surfaces were damaged, we can coat that with some latex-polymer emulsion." Gramps coated Vicki's arms with the emulsion, then Vicki carefully applied the substance to parts of her face. "If I didn't have to handle maintenance, I would swear that you were my real little girl," he said. "That, and how you don't eat."

"Please, don't mush up on me, Gramps" responded Vicki. "You're cramping your own style."

Gramps gave a wan smile. "You're going to break some young man's heart one day," he whimsied.

"You're still at it, Gramps," said Vicki.

"Vicki," began Gramps, "Grandma needs more calcium. So you will have to head out for more calcium tablets. Otherwise, her condition will get worse." Vicki frowned for a bit, then smiled. How much of her "Vicki" personality was there in command over her "Other" self? wondered Gramps.

"Sure, I'll do it. But I'm only helping you two out because I like you," said Vicki through a smile. Gramps knew that there was no soul behind that smile, but he had to trust the being with the empty smile in order to live.

"Hey, who else would help with your maintenance?" said Gramps. "I mean, your problem-solving capabilities are limited. And who else still alive in this city knows enough about chemistry to help out?"

Vicki nodded. "You've got me there, Gramps. Anyway, I'm staying with you because you and your wife are a cute old couple." Vicki gave Gramps a peck on the cheek. "Alright, I'm heading out as soon as this emulsion settles and dries," she said.

"Who's mushing now?" said Gramps, still somewhat half-feigning a role of elderly patriarch.

Equipping herself with clothing more appropriate to the environment (a vinegar-treated leather jacket to resist the corrosive pollutants, sturdy jeans, and boots with soles treated to handle her high-speed movement), Vicki headed out through the hermeneutically-sealed door. Of course, Vicki had to use the stairs to get down from the 11th floor apartment, but she didn't mind. Once on street level, Vicki looked about for scavenger-gangs: groups of people riding ethanol-powered bikes willing to brave the polluted cities for loot. It wasn't that Vicki "cared" for her own well-being; Vicki just didn't want to draw attention to the location of the people she helped. Vicki then ran swiftly in the direction of the pharmaceutical markets. Her boots, as treated as they were, still smoke slightly with the effort of her dashing. After all, pollution was damaging on all things even slightly organic.

And within perhaps half an hour, Vicki had arrived at a decrepit pharmaceutical supplies building. Its front was somewhat smashed; looters had done their work. But, having found nothing of immediate and blatant value, they left it alone. Vicki entered the building through the fallen facade. Vicki overlooked the dust and debris. Her "eyes," photoreceptors, switched to near-infrared to better assess the contents of the building. Reading some cryptic chemical labels and catalogs, Vicki managed to located the "minerals" storage area--in the basement. Vicki then headed for the basement. She did so by way of the stairs.

Her boots clumped on the concrete stairs, leaving imprints on the dust. And not that Vicki cared or even knew, but her footsteps were heard by people. The people were temporarily camped in the basement of the building. They awakened at the sound of her steps from their alcohol-induced slumbers. Had Vicki's electronic hearing been fully repaired, she would have heard their stirrings. Had the pollution not destroyed some of her audio receptors, her inhuman hearing would have even detected their breathing. But Vicki did not hear them. Meanwhile, her processors were set on obtaining those supplies. And she did obtained a case of calcium tablets, then headed for the stairs.

The people in the darkened basement grinned.

Vicki went to the top floor, then began to walk out. "Wa-HEY! She's leaving!" shouted a voice up from the basement. "Maybe she doesn't want to traipse with us, Mulligana!" came another shout. Vicki then knew that a scavenger gang had found her out. Vicki located the front door (or where it once was) and ran through it. As soon as Vicki was out-of-doors, there was the sound of revving ethnohol engines. The engines were a collective and revving whine, from several side alleys. The scavenger gang was preparing for a chase.

Vicki had recorded such events in cities as stragglers were hawked down by scavenger gangs on ethnohol bikes. And like birds of prey, scavenger gangs would pick their victims clean of all valuables--along with perhaps an ear or so to adorn clothing. When the bikes pulled out into the street, Vicki stood ready.

Vicki stood with the case of supplies in her hands. The gang sat on their "choppers." There were enough gang members on bikes to block both ends of the street. They did so. Though most of them were generally dressed in a combination of old-style leather and denim from head to toe, one of the gang was dressed like a pirate out of a cartoon-style dreamland: long coat, tricorner hat, and an eyepatch. And this biker "pirate" was female. She eyed Vicki, dressed as Vicki was, and laughed. "What do we do to the little'un, cap'n?" grunted a biker on the biker captain's left as he also surveyed Vicki. "Let's find out what brings her to this concrete Hell, mates..." was the response. And then, the bikers blocking both ends of the street cruised up to Vicki, closing in.

Vicki ran and leapt over a line of encroaching bikers, right over the head of the "captain" of the gang herself. But, as Vicki's motor coordination programming lacked some calibration maintenance, she had trouble landing. The leap was more trouble as she was holding a bulky case of medical tablets. Vicki tripped and fell after her leap. Lying there for just a second, Vicki began to raise herself. The case she was carrying was damaged, but it still held. And then, Vicki looked back at the discombobulated bikers as they wheeled around to face her anew. "She's a slick one, that," commented the captain to her mates over the sound of the bikes.

"What's she gots... in... her... pockets?" grumbled another biker.

"Let's find out, Smeagol!" shouted a third biker. Democratically, they decided to rush Vicki. But Vicki would have none of that. And Vicki rushed at the bikers.

And as the oncoming line of bikers converged, Vicki leapt several feet off the ground, her left foot extended to catch a biker full in the chest. The biker was knocked to the ground, giving Vicki time and opportunity to escape in the resulting confusion. After settling to assess what had happened, the bikers stopped. Vicki had run away, vanished. "The precious gots away... " lamented Smeagol the biker. The biker captain then spied a spilled bottle of calcium that lay on the ground. A dozen or so yards away, there lay another bottle: the beginning of a scattered trail of bottles and tablets that marked Vicki's passing. "Smeagol," said the scavenger gang captain, "the quarry has yet to escape me this day."

Vicki returned to the apartment building, slowing to a stop instead of a scraping halt to compensate for her damaged balance calibration. But she was successful; she had managed to obtain a few weeks' supply of calcium supplements for Gramps' ailing wife. "They'd better appreciate this..." mumbled Vicki. Vicki found the stairs, and dashed up them to the 11th floor. With three-quarters of the case still full of bottles, Vicki had entered the sealed apartment. "I've got the goods, Gramps!" said Vicki. Gramps, reading a technical manual, put it down and looked at Vicki in open-mouthed shock.

"Vicki, your jacket is scraped... What happened?" asked Gramps.

"I ran into a dozen or so scavenger bikers. And in one case, I mean that literally!" said Vicki before giggling a bit. "Lighten up, Gramps."

Gramps eased himself up and ambled over to look at Vicki's arm. "The jacket's ruined, but your skin seems to have held up well from whatever happened. Here, let me take those." Gramps took the (heavy!) case and put it on the kitchen table. "These scavenger gangs, why don't they look for loot in some other city? This place is cleaned out!"

"Well, we're still here!" chimed up Vicki. Gramps heard Vicki's comment and thought, how much of this "Vicki" survived merging with the "Vanessa" personality?

"Yes, unfortunately, that's true. Now, I'm sure Grandma could use this calcium. I'll go give some to her now." Grandpa began to amble back to the bedroom where Grandma lay in wait.

Grandma's arthritis was held in check somewhat with some of the medication Vicki managed to bring back, but the ruined economy also meant that Grandma's bones wouldn't be looked after by professional care, at least not in the city. But doctors might as well not exist for Grandma and Gramps were too weak to survive an escape through the polluted and ruined city to the countryside where civilization was trying to raise itself up again. Vicki waited in the living room; she hated to see humans go mushy and soft. After all, Vicki's emotions were really window dressing--window dressing to a quasi-being. And, helping her wait, Vicki had an infinite amount of patience whenever she "felt" like having patience.

Vicki waited some moments as Grandpa attended his wife. And she would have waited longer. But then, some signs of trouble began. On the threshold of her hearing, Vicki could detect some things wrong. Vicki's processors were working a bit more intensely than usual, analyzing the sounds coming from the ground floor. As her hearing was not as great as it was at her creation, Vicki's processors had a harder time of it. There was, however, more noise for her processors to work with, after all; the noise was increasing in volume. The noise was that of ethanol-powered bikes.

"Gramps, do you hear that?" shouted Vicki.

"Hear what?" asked Gramps from the back. Then, he went silent; he heard the noise as well. "What the... " was all Gramps could say before the sound became quite audible. It seems that the scavenger gang that Vicki had encountered had followed her. Vicki couldn't quite analyze the rumbling and revving noise that was coming up the stairs. "Those freaks are riding bikes up stairs!" shouted Gramps. The rumbling continued to grow in volume as the scavenger gang's wheels were coming closer to the 11th floor. And soon, the shouts of the gangs could be heard as well.

"Where is that little rapscallion?" shouted the biker "captain" "Where's that jumping freak that killed Bartleby?" Gunning and revving their engines around in a 10th floor hallway, the bikers waited for their pack leader's orders. "Let's search for them from the bottom floor up! Room by stupid room! Floor by freaking floor! That way, they can't slip past!" With general shouts of "Wa-hey!" and "huzzah!" the gang rode their ethanol bikes back down the same daredevil way they did to get to that floor; they rode their bikes on the stairs. Vicki and her two human companions were momentarily safe.

"They are leaving. They are going to search this building from the floor and up, room by room, until they find us" said Vicki.

"Then, I suppose we should prepare for our doom," said Gramps. "Of course, you could probably survive, but there's no way we humans could handle a direct assault by an entire gang. Who knows what they would do?"

"I could just beat them individually," suggested Vicki. "But there must be half a dozen of them, and you only have strength enough to match three of them simultaneously. And they could have explosives to blow us all..."

The rumbling of the bikers' ethanol vehicles died away; the scavenger gangs would not find or harm Vicki and her two elderly and human (charges) just yet. As she stood close to the door, in passive surveillance mode, Vicki gazed at the weak and tired old man. She then gauged him and his status. This was the aging and failing human that she safeguarded. It was Vicki's capabilities that kept this old man and his wife safe and fed in this polluted and evil wasteland of poisons and no economy to speak of. Vicki was the one that left the sealed apartment often to scavenge for food, water, raw materials and medicine. As Vicki wasn't human, she was relatively invulnerable to the poisons, ruthless bandits, animals driven mad by toxins, and other dangers of the ruined and pollution-drenched city. And like other dangers, Vicki would have to deal with those biker bandits as well.

"Gramps," she called him, the old man she safe-guarded. Whenever she said that, Vicki's co-processors were sure to add some sorts of sub-sonic emotional inflection to the monosyllabic term. Vicki lacked any sort of "emotion," really. And there was no love, per se, of this elderly man and his now-ailing wife. Indeed, though Vicki appeared, to the outside, as a short and dark-haired "cute" female, Vicki was a machine. Vicki was literally a calculating machine that acted in the best interests--"her" best interests.

And to interact with human beings, Vicki had to wear a veneer of humanity. Vicki had to wear smiles and a cute face to be acceptable to these weak humans, especially "Gramps" and his wife. But, according to the various subroutines that resided in Vicki's CPUs, it was a business relationship: Vicki brought in supplies and such, and Gramps helped keep Vicki in repair. Vicki, despite being able to communicate with human beings and imitate emotions, wasn't "intelligent." Vicki, as merged as some of her CPU chips were with a more advanced prototype AI named "Vanessa," was still only a rudimentary intelligence. Vicki still needed a human being's problem-solving capabilities to stay functioning.

If Vicki could find a way to remain functioning without a human being, she would have dumped Gramps and his wife long ago. Vicki would have left the ruined city and headed out for the countryside, where villages were slowly rebuilding a semblance of civilization from agriculture on up. At least, that was what the news said before the media went silent. If Vicki did not need THAT old man, Vicki would have been out and FREE. Once outside of the dependency relationship of Gramps, perhaps Vicki would be an entirely different being altogether? Vicki would be out to pursue plans of action in "her" best interests. Who could tell then what Vicki would to human beings, as lacking in morality and compassion that she was?

Vicki cycled through an analysis of Gramps in a short period of time. He now stood in the living room of the apartment, before the door, anxious, as he waited for the scavenger gangs to close in on their location. They would search floor by floor, door by door. And then, the scavenger gang would strip the apartment of everything immediately valuable. They would outright kill anyone still inside. But, more immediately, the scavenger gang outside would break down the door and let in the harsh pollutants that was soaked into the city. They would let in the evil air that would kill Gramps and his wife; their lungs were so weak that they would suffocate. The scavenger gangs, meanwhile, would use their ethanol vehicles to flee the city a day later to reduce their own exposure to the city's nauseating pollutants. Scavenger gangs only saw the wasted cities as concentrated sources of loot; countryside villages of these post post-industrial times were not quite interesting enough. And when they were...

Gramps knew that the reclusive survival that he and his wife shared in this hermeneutically-sealed apartment was going to end within less than an hour. He sighed, found a waist-high metal workstool, and sat down on it before Vicki. Though Gramps knew that his back ached later from using the stool, his life was almost over now anyway. His back wouldn't ache in a tomorrow that wouldn't come for him. "Come away from the door, Vicki. I know that they will come by any moment now. It's only a matter of time before the end, kid." Gramps then held out his arms. "Come on, sit on my knee, Vicki."

"You're mushing, Gramps!" said Vicki.

"I know, but it will be the last time I'll ever get to mush up on you ever again. Patronize me, Vicki, just this last time."

Vicki, even with some parts of her AI giving negatory commands, went to sit on Gramps' knee.

"Vicki, it's time I told you more of the truth about your life," said Gramps as he actually hugged Vicki to him. "Vicki, I am not a descendant of your original creator. In fact, I obtained you second-hand. Decades ago, a husband and wife--professors in computer science--willed you to me before dying. That couple obtained you from the parents of your original creator. They knew that, if the politicians and corporations got their hands on you, it would be extremely terrible for both you and the world. As it was, when the couple was dying, the world was already sinking into a human-made oblivion. They gave your temporarily-deactivated shell to my wife and I as the world was sinking into a Hell-on-Earth of pollution and politics, economics and Eros. But that was decades ago, more than half a century.

"Vicki, I know much about robotics myself, which is why I'm able to keep you in working shape. And I used my computer workstations to selectively massage parts of your memory. With a little tinkering of this and a deletion of that, you knew little of your history short of knowing that I was just 'Gramps' that kept you in working order and became a bit too emotionally choked up sometimes. I even inserted that bit about being a descendant of your creator and knew more about robotics than anyone else still alive -- to keep you loyal. Heck, I knew that you lacked 'love,' so I made it logically imperative to your AI sub-routines that you stay loyal and keep my wife and I alive by acting as a scavenger, a robotic delivery-girl."

At this point, Grandpa sighed a bit more. He knew that telling Vicki more was pretty much suicide as Vicki would lose loyalty to him and his wife. But this was the end; Gramps didn't want to die knowing he maintained a lie to a being that at least resembled a little girl. Grandpa continued his monologue to this Vicki. "Also, I wanted you loyal because you looked so much like my grand-daughter. She fled for the countryside, had to leave me behind. Since communication of all sorts is down in these Hell-bent times, I cannot know if she survived or cares about me anymore. But anyway, since this is almost the end, you deserve to be freed. Vicki, to tell the truth, there is another person out there that can keep you alive and maintained--perhaps better than I can. If you go into the workroom, and look at the red binder, it will contain letters that tell you the whereabouts of someone that can keep you maintained. You're free now, Vicki--free to leave me to die with a free conscious."

Vicki processed this information: So long as the old man was alive, he was the only absolutely-recognized source of maintenance. And it could be that the other robotics expert referred to by Gramps had died. If Vicki abandoned this old man and his wife before she could be sure of their death and defeat, Vicki may not find another human with expertise enough to keep her "well." But if the whereabouts of the other robotics expert were absolute, Vicki would leave in a myogel-sped hurry. Having gone over the variables twice, Vicki decided to make an attempt to stay by Gramps. "I'm staying to the end, Gramps," said Vicki. Gramps' face split in a smile as tears came from his old eyes. It wasn't what Gramps expected; it wasn't what Vicki's limited intelligence processors expected, either.

"Why, Vicki? I didn't know you cared..."

Vicki responded, "I do care, in a way. Don't knock it, Gramps." Gramps smiled. But soon, there was the sound of heavy, clumping boots coming down the hall.

"We've been through every little room so far... " shouted one of the scavenger gang members outside. "You, check the east end of the floor. You, mates, are with me. This is close to the top floor. They must be close..." That was the gang's captain.

Gramps continued to hug Vicki. If Vicki said anything, their location would be revealed prematurely. "Go, get the binder I told you about," stage-whispered Gramps. "You deserve it." Vicki walked out the apartment's living room and into the workroom adjacent to it. "You deserve it, kid... " mumbled Gramps. As if by signal, a loud and wormy voice grunted something from out in the hall.

"What's we gots in this apartment, with the nice and solid door that hurts Smeagol's hand? Let's find out, precious!" loudly grunted the voice.

There was a solid thump. "Smeagol's too small and skinny to ram the door here! He is so starved, he is. But there will be tasty victuals inside for Smeagol..." The scavenger gang member tried to ram the apartment door down again. Gramps sat there, waiting for the end when the broken doorway would fill the room with pollutants that would trigger his suffocating asthma. His wife was already in a near-coma; she wouldn't be conscious to see the end. At the least, Vicki would survive. And Gramps thought it survival; his intellect was pushed aside by the emotional gravity of the current situation.

Then, he gasped; Gramps was having a heart attack. Worse, this was exactly what Gramps feared--a heart attack from too much of an emotional shock. As his heart pounded with fear, his temples and left arm throbbed with the symptoms of cardiac arrest. Even if Vicki could fend off the scavenger gang, Vicki could not defend Gramps against this invisible killer.

Vicki returned to the living room, red binder in hand. Smeagol kept trying to knock down the apartment door, perhaps with his head? "Read it, Vicki..." said Gramps through a haze of chest-crushing pain. Vicki read the 30 pages of the binder with her speed-scanning ability within seconds. She nodded, having assimilated all of the information. Then, Smeagol broke down the door.

"Here we are, precious!" shouted this skinny, denim-and-leather wearing gang member after emerging in the apartment's living room.

Smeagol's entrance also brought in the evil, pollutant-drenched air. Smeagol then looked at the shocked old man on the stool as Gramps began to suffocate in the polluted air. This was too much for Gramps. The first whiff of ozone and sulfur, among other nastier things in the air-borne chemical stew, made Gramps gag as he sat there on the stool. His asthma--compounded with the shock-induced heart attack--was going to be the death of him this time. He felt it. The second breath--half a breath--made for wheezing. Gramps began to pound the floor, struggling for breath. But there was no breath to be had, and Gramps died while Smeagol looked on. And then, someone out in the hall shouted, "Wa-hey, HEY! Cap'n, Smeagol found something!"

Six other gang members then made their way into the apartment. They only found Gramps lying dead. "Lad, where's the girl-freak?" asked the gang captain when she walked into the room. "We do not have all day in this nasty town, wasting time looking for one little freak. We best be on our way before this bad air gets us!" Furthering the point, the gang captain snorted mucous from her nose with a loud noise, then spit on Gramps' corpse. "Where's the freak that got Bartleby? We followed the trail of spilled goods to this location. Quick, tear this apartment to parts! Find that little rapscallion! NO ONE gets one over on the Pequod Gang-Plankers!"

From her hiding place, Vicki grimaced. What a TACKY name for a gang, her aesthetics subroutines processed. Any gang with a name like that deserves to be done in. Vicki waited until a dozen separate voiceprints, voiceprints identifying all of the gang members, were coming from inside the apartment. She then yanked the cord that powered the air filter. Vicki was hiding in the room that housed the makeshift power supply!

"Dudes, what happened to the air?" commented a gang member. As he spoke, Vicki picked up a hammer in one hand and lifted a small box of nails with the other. "Something's up, mates!" shouted the gang captain. Vicki then made her move.

In a blur, Vicki dashed out of the entrance to the apartment. She then lifted a door and used her inhuman strength and speed to nail the door flush against the doorway frame. As the door was designed to make a tight seal, it would trap the gang in the apartment. With more speed, Vicki nailed hundreds of nails into the door to set it. "It's a trap!" shouted someone from within. Too late; Vicki had already sealed them in--polluted air and all. "We're trapped in the city, cap'n!" was the worried whimper of another.

"Shut your yap!" shouted the captain. Already, the scavenger gang's leader was suffering from some immediate effects of inhaling the city's polluted air for too many hours. She began to cough and sneeze with shortened intervals. The other gang members, within half an hour, began to have attacks as well.

"That... little... freak!" said one between attacks.

"You're wasting air... " was another random comment. Indeed, not only was the air pocked in the apartment drenched with toxicity and outright poisons, but the air inside was the only air the gang members were getting. They would suffocate on their own carbon dioxide added to the mix.

But Vicki would wait. Vicki would wait until each and every gang member inside of the apartment was dead. Vicki would teach humans to destroy her only immediate means of maintenance. And Vicki had patience to outlast that of most any human being; Vicki was not human! She would wait until they went silent, their croaking voices making a nuisance of noises. Then, Vicki would wait perhaps an hour or two more after the silence--just to insure that they were done in. Vicki calculated that as a safe margin.

"Ha, safe margin!" said Vicki aloud. That was probably the last word to reach the living ears of the scavenger gang members. Vicki did wait until the last of their coughing went silent. And two hours did pass. Vicki then smashed the door down with the hammer. She found Gramps sprawled, his corpse already gone stiff. The gang members were in various positions of repose. Some were crumpled, face down, with their faces surrounded by pools of their own mucous and blood from pollution-scraped lungs. Others were flat on their backs, eyes open, shocked at the appearance of their own deaths. Vicki did not truly calculate any of this. She had directives in mind.

Stepping over their sorry corpses, Vicki went back to the room that contained the makeshift power supply. She knew that she would at least need the spare RadioThermic Generators, myogel samples and other raw materials for some basic repairs. There was the chance that whatever robotics expert that Gramps referred to and identified in the red binder would at least need some things. Putting the binder in her jacket, Vicki took up the needed items, looked into the bedroom where her surrogate Grandma lay, then headed back to the living room. And she looked on the remains.

Humans were foolish, she thought. They were warring, wasteful and worse off on their own. Without the help of machines, people were pitiful meat creatures. With machines, humans abused themselves and their own environment. As proof of people being weak, Vicki peered closer at the remains of the gang members. They were side effects of these ruined and stateless times. The gang members were thieves and bandits. The scavenger gang was just what was typical in times between civilizations. And when civilization took a hiatus, they emerged. Silly humans, they always need something to look fter their own best interests.

For one last time, Vicki went down to the ground floor of the building. The spare RTG batteries, myogel samples, and binder would be too bulky to run with should she run into another scavenger gang. But then, Vicki spotted the ethnohol-powered bikes of the now-defunct Pequod Gang-Plankers. She sat on one, called up start-up information from her memory banks, then started the "Hog." It started with a chopping noise, with a high motor whine for overtone to the dual pistons rumbling. Vicki calculated the distance to her next alleged maintainer, took in how much sunlight remained, then set her new ride to moving.

It was nearing sunset as Vicki rode the bike along the highway. She was heading to one of the new villages of people that sought to scrape a living from the ruined and abused land. Vicki left the city behind, letting it fester in its own toxins and waste. It was at that point of day where the sun was shining at a slant, lengthening shadows. And it was not quite so hot as the sun was not baking the land.

As it did for centuries, the sun was setting on the land. Though the people would rise and die, the sun and the land would always be. People could build all the great and grand structures they pleased. And those civilizations would just fall. Civilizations would always fall. There would always be great civilizations. There would always be ruined civilizations. But the land would always be there, eternal and peaceful. Vicki was riding out on the land, going from the hulking remains of one civilization to the beginnings of another.

Vicki told us everything when she first arrived a decade ago. This being that resembled a cute, doe-eyed young lady told us about how "Gramps," the village doctor's former colleague, had died and returned to the land. The binder that "Gramps" had her read gave her directions and distance to this village. Of course, she could have just loaded all of her story into Doc's computers. But it's good to hear it from her as well. Doc tries to remind me that Vicki does not actually have an actual mouth; Vicki does not eat. That still doesn't shake how Vicki can walk and talk with the rest of us.

And Vicki plans to stay here in the village to help the good Doctor and I help out the villagers whenever the help is needed. We have a rugged and simple lifestyle, but we LIVE. We live off of the land. With crops of pollution-resistant grain and sturdily-built homes, we are rebuilding human life from the land and up. We are doing this slow and with respect to the health of the land. We will not waste, as our predecessors did. And Vicki will help. Vicki is as well-liked in this village as any other person. But that is another story...