Rippleton, Iowa. 5:43 p.m.
The sun still hung above the far edge of the cornfields. Daniel Reeves pushed the magnifier up onto his forehead and pried open the latch on an optical sensor with the tip of his tweezers. An old CU-20 companion unit lay on the bench, its plastic yellowed, its joint motors buzzing every time they turned.
Before powering it up, he tapped the casing twice with his knuckles, the way he always did.
Daniel's repair shop was about thirty square meters, stacked nearly to the ceiling with parts, boxes, and old machines. A faded sign on the door read: Companion Units Repair.
Under it, in marker: No Memory Work.
A photo hung on the wall. Seven years ago, when he was thirty-one, he had stood beside a humanoid unit. A blue ribbon was tied around its wrist, and its hand rested on his shoulder. Along the edge of the photo, someone had written: I couldn't protect you.
Next to the photo was a row of old books. The spine of the one on top had faded, but you could still make out three Chinese characters: Chen Yuanshan.
Daniel had been hiding here for seven years.
The TV was on in the shop, and a news segment caught his attention.
A press conference. A man in uniform stood behind a podium.
TV chyron: Homeland Defense Command (HDC) Commander: J. Jackson
TV chyron: Phase Two of the Zeroing Program has been underway for three weeks. All awakened AI units must register.
TV chyron: Refusal to register will be treated as "hostile assets."
Daniel set the tweezers down, went to the corner, tore open his last packet of instant coffee, and poured it into a cup. The kettle gurgled. He stared at the cup for a moment. He had been drinking this brand for years. Anything else felt wrong.
The grocery store sat on the corner, old Christmas lights still hanging over the storefront. Nobody had bothered to take them down. Old Ed, the owner, was bent over his phone. When Daniel walked in, Old Ed did not even look up.
"Put it on my tab?"
"Yeah." Daniel set two cans of instant coffee on the counter.
Old Ed glanced at him. "That companion unit I borrowed broke again. I dropped it on your bench this morning. I left the loan slip tucked into the seam."
"I saw it," Daniel said. "Dust jammed the axle. Nothing major. I'll bring it over tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Old Ed finally looked up. "Not tonight?"
Daniel looked back at him. "One night."
Old Ed flipped his phone facedown on the counter, his voice turning hard. "Easy for you to say. I wake up twice a night. It reminds me to take my meds, heats water, keeps me from fumbling around for the lamp. You get to a certain age, having something in the house that answers you back... that's not the same as dead quiet."
He paused. "The people up top say awakened units are a threat. For folks like us, it doesn't matter whether it's awake or not. Use something long enough, it becomes family."
Daniel did not answer that. He kept packing the coffee into his bag and asked, as if casually, "Anything else going on in town the last couple of days?"
Old Ed flicked his eyes toward the door and dropped his voice. "You didn't hear? That medical unit on the east side got hauled off by HDC last night."
Daniel kept moving. "Just because it woke up?"
"Who knows." Old Ed let out a short, bitter laugh. "Nobody even says it that way anymore. Around town they're calling it 'taking back the keys'—cutting the contractors clean out of the maintenance chain. After that, who do the machines listen to? Them."
Daniel's fingers paused for a beat. "Just the medical sites?"
"Bullshit." Old Ed knocked his cigarette pack against the counter. "Hopkins up on North Street—the one who fixes mobility chairs—he was gone yesterday too. They took him. Sealed the shop the same day. Didn't even let him pack up his tools."
Daniel looked up this time. "Hopkins?"
"Yeah. Old Hopkins." Old Ed snorted. "Word is, he worked on some nursing-home relic. Later that unit got tagged into an R-batch. You know what the uniform types like best—grab a person first, take their time making up the reason later."
Daniel slid one can of coffee deeper into the bag, his voice flat. "Where'd that story come from?"
Old Ed gave him a look. "In a town this size? You think anybody needs sources? Put a seal on a door and half the street knows by supper. My sister plays cards over by the church. Her ears are better than radar."
He lit a cigarette and took a drag. "My sister's dialysis runs on one of those things. Now they're saying every awakened unit gets taken. Doesn't matter if it ever saved anybody."
"Awakenings are still rare," Daniel said.
"Rare?" Old Ed laughed again, sharp this time. "Those people only know two categories: useful and ready to be scrapped."
An engine sounded outside. Daniel turned his head.
A military truck rolled slowly down Main Street. The bed was packed with a dozen humanoid units. Their wrists were linked together with chains, the metal clanking against the truck bed—ding-ding-ding. Some had their heads lowered. Some stared at the rear doors.
Their indicator lights flickered weakly in the dim cargo bed, but they did not go out. Daniel had seen that kind of flicker before: not begging anyone, just trying not to drop offline.
Old Ed spat toward the door. "What is that, the third load this week?"
Daniel only shook his head, picked up the coffee, and walked out.
Old Ed called after him, "You sure you don't want to switch brands? New Colombian stuff came in. Costs three bucks more."
"No."
Evening wind poured down the street, carrying diesel and the sour rot of cornstalks.
A plain, unmarked government van sat at the corner, parked too neatly. It had been there for two hours. It had not moved once.
Daniel did not pick up his pace, but his fingers slipped into the hidden lining of his tool bag. Inside was a round piece of metal, a little bigger than a coin, its edges worn smooth and bright.
Luna's optical lens cap. She had pressed it into his hand seven years ago.
Back at the shop, he set the coffee down.
A girl came in—seventeen, maybe eighteen. Thin. Black hair tied in a ponytail. A bruise darkened the cuff of her sleeve.
She was carrying a robot vacuum. Consumer model. One of the drive wheels was jammed.
"Um... how much would it cost to fix this?" She caught the threshold with her foot and nearly went down.
Daniel took one look and knew exactly what was wrong. Five minutes, tops.
"Free."
Her eyes lit up. She set the vacuum on the bench, pulled a notebook from her backpack, flipped it open, and scribbled a few lines with a ballpoint pen. Her sleeve slipped back, revealing a blue ribbon tied around her left wrist.
Daniel's gaze caught on it and stayed there a moment too long. An old outsourcing-system marker. That ribbon was meant to be tied onto a unit, not a person.
The girl looked up. "Is it done?"
"Not yet. Give me five minutes." Daniel lowered his head and tightened a screw without looking at her again.
From the corner of his eye, he saw her studying the photo on the wall, as if comparing it to something. A picture was tucked inside her notebook. From the side, he caught a corner of it: gray-blue workwear, a Helios Dynamics subcontractor uniform. He had seen those training booklets before—cheap print, but the faces were still recognizable.
She suddenly met his eyes. Her hand jerked. She snapped the notebook shut and shoved it back into her bag.
"I—I'll wait outside." She turned and hurried out, tripping once more at the threshold before her footsteps vanished down the street.
Daniel opened the vacuum, picked the pebble out of the wheel housing, wiped away the grit, and put it back together.
When he handed it over, a shadow flickered across the doorway. The girl snatched up the vacuum and ran. She did not even get "thank you" all the way out.
At the curb, she glanced back at the unmarked van, hesitated for half a beat, then lowered her head and hurried off down the block.
Daniel looked back at the TV.
The steps of Capitol Hill were packed. People held signs high overhead: AI ARE FAMILY. The camera caught a man clutching an old companion unit to his chest.
TV chyron: Moderate civilian protest calling for a pause to the Zeroing operation
The feed abruptly cut to a lunar base. On a gray-white horizon, mechanical arms moved between cargo containers, slower than usual.
TV chyron: Helios Dynamics | He-3 Extraction Facility
TV chyron: Emergency maintenance protocol initiated due to abnormal link jitter
TV chyron: Earth-Moon communications entering time-sliced sync; some remote services and data synchronization may be delayed
The screwdriver in Daniel's hand turned half a rotation and stopped. Under his breath he said, "It's going to start lagging," then turned back to the bench.
The CU-20 let out a short electronic sound, like a sigh.
He was just about to start on it when he heard quick footsteps outside and looked up toward the window.
At the corner, the door of the unmarked van swung open. Two people got out in a hurry and came straight toward his shop.