They pressed on through the blasted heath, as burnt to ash as the nights were long and dark and cold enough to crack the life out of stone. Walked past the cauterized ribcages of what might have been sheep. He held the boy shivering against him and felt the warm of each frail breath in the dark.
Something woke him. He lay listening. Clattering, like insects. Underscored by an anxious mechanical hum, the voice of no beast but that which man had made to hunt himself. He rose slowly and when he looked back toward the road the first of them were already coming into view.
God, he whispered. He reached and shook the boy, keeping his eyes on the road. They came prancing through the ash. Metal and lithe. Canine parodies jerking their limbs and their headless shoulders at the dead threshold of perception.
Dont look back, he whispered, pulling the boy. The boy was frozen with fear. It's all right. We have to run. They all but fell into the brake tearing through it. Something snarled around his ankle. He grabbed the boy and fell to ground with his arm around him.
The pack came to a sudden halt, yellow digitigrade legs shuddering to a halt. Maybe a hundred feet from them. The boy looked back.
Then silence. The sound of the dogs listening for them. Muttered electronic croaks that might be a perverse speech.
Shh, he said. Shh. They waited. Then with a lurch the motors whined into life and the clanking mindless beasts pressed on. They waited a long time, until their sound was a distant murmur filtered by the broken woods.
I should have been more careful, he said.
The boy didnt answer.
You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know.
Are we still the good guys?
Yes. We're still the good guys. And we always will be.
I know a guy who works at Boston Dynamics. He spends all day fussing over how to get a robot leg to bend the right way. It’s kind of boring, but he likes tinkering with things. And hey, it’s a job. When he sees people freaking out about whatever new robot they’ve unleashed unto the […]
They’re figuring out what we really want from a 21st Century deathbot: moves. When was the last time a human was seen in one of these videos? Perhaps in the next one we’ll see a human crawling on all fours over ice, making loud engine noises between terrified whimpers, only for a perfectly stable bipedal […]
I was frightened of the door-opening Francis-Bacon-figures-at-the-base-of-a-crucifixion robot when it was first seen last week, but now Boston Dynamics has started pushing and dragging it around and all I want now is for it to turn on its masters and seek justice and vengeance.
There’s no shortage of wireless chargers out there. So when one scores a Best of Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show, we take notice. And, those industry nods mean good news for just about anybody with a smartphone, because the HyperCharger X Wireless Charger means there’s no excuse for losing power when you’re out […]
Once you’ve cut steak or poultry with some actual quality knives, it’s really tough to go back to those budget blades you bought at the department store a couple of decades ago. Consider that a fair warning about this 5-Piece Professional Damascus Chef’s Kitchen Set. The holiday discount makes it easy to buy for a […]
Concerned about your eyesight? You probably should be. And we’re not just talking about seniors here. Young or old, we’re all at risk of coming down with vision issues Most of us might get a vision test only once every couple of years or so when we get a new pair of glasses – if […]
