Under the Floor
As I look out the window I suddenly see my neighbor freeze, then start moving again as if he had stopped working for a moment. That’s strange I thought, our machine halves never stop working. I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and I know it’s my mother coming to bring me breakfast. As she opened the door I turn towards her, the humanoid machinery which makes up half of her face shining dully in the light. She looks upset.
“What’s bothering you Mom?”
“Good question, but, sadly the answer is hidden under the floor,” she replies. A smile was now forming on her face. That was her favorite saying, and usually the answer I got to most questions. “Ah Solus, you never cease to amuse me with that expression,” she said laughing at what she calls the what is my mom talking about face. “Big changes are about to occur Solus, I promise.” She hugs me and the cold metal of her machine half chills my skin. She turns around and I hear the clink of her fingertips as they grasp the banister. She starts down the stairs.
How can anything change? I don’t even know why I have to stay in hiding or what lies beyond these walls… All of the sudden I hear a clang of metal. Should I go and see what happened? No I probably shouldn’t. I wait a few minutes but all I heard from downstairs was silence. I cautiously walk down the stairs. As soon as I reach the bottom I see my mom sprawled out on the floor.
“Mom!” I scream. I rush to her and shake her metal frame but she seems almost frozen. Slowly, she lifts her non-machine arm and points up the stairs. Her one human eye blinks as if to tell me to go. I help her into a sitting position and walk back up the stairs, telling my mom I’ll be back soon. What’s going on? I thought. I wish I could ask but even if my mom could speak all she would probably say would be, “Good question, but, sadly the answer is hidden under the floor.”

That’s it! I can’t believe it! After all these years! I start frantically looking for a loose floorboard. I soon found one and tore at it. It easily came loose as if it had been hastily refastened. Inside there was a small metal box, about the size of a shoebox and I quickly unfastened it. I spread the contents on the floor and search through them. There were papers filled with nonsensical looking scribbling, but there seems to be a few typed ones too. I skim them for valuable information. I find what appears to be a speech. The first couple of pages are crowd pleasers, but soon the science came out: We are killing ourselves; it said, Our android halves will not work forever. In 2163 the planets will align in such a way that the main chemical that powers the machines will stop reacting… I hear laughing outside. Who would be laughing? Everybody’s going to die! I look out the window and see a few boys rooting through the pocket of my frozen neighbor. Without thinking, I run out of the house.
“Hey, what are you doing!?” I yell. The boys scatter, and I suddenly realize that I’m outside for the first time in my life. I want to soak in everything in but I know that I need to find those boys again; they seem to be the only ones not frozen. I start walking in the direction I saw one of them go and soon end up in a dead end. I start to turn around and… WHAM! Something flies out of nowhere and tackles me to the ground. As he lands I see it’s a tall spindly boy. The boy charges at me again and once again pins me to the pavement.
“Listen, sorry for whatever I did, just let me go, ok!” I manage to choke out, on the verge of tears. He stands up and brushes himself off.
“Apology accepted young fellow.” He holds out his hand to help me up, I gladly take it and try to pretend I wasn’t crying. “I’m sorry for beating you up,” he said, “but you were asking for it. Setting your sorry behind on Snakeman’s turf and all.” I guess my confusion was pretty obvious because he started launching into how “Snakeman’s boys were most certainly better that any other boys” etc, etc... I hate to interrupt, but it seems to me that I have more important things to do than listen to him babble about his gang or whatever.
“Ummmm… I was wondering… are there any adults you know that aren’t frozen?” He looks at me angrily.
“NO!” he screams at me, “Nobody is left. It’s just you, me and the rest of the boys. Are you happy? Snakeman’s gone, frozen just like the rest of them!”. The boy sits down and buries his face in his hands. We’ve only known each other for a few minutes and we already made each other cry. This was going to be a great relationship.
“I’m really sorry about … uh, Snakeman, but I could really use your help, I think I’m supposed to save all the frozen people.” He looks up at me and bursts into laughter.
“You! Trying to save the WORLD!” he manages to blurt out over his uncontrollable laughing. “You can’t even save yourself from ME!”
“I know you don’t have faith in me, but you don’t have anything to lose. We might be able to save Snakeman.” That really got his attention.
“Ok, I’ll take you to the lab. By the way, the name’s Spidermonkey,” he says and gestures for me to follow.
I follow him through a complicated maze of alleyways and we end up in front of a rundown looking factory. We walk in and I’m surprised to see computers of all shapes and sizes. Kids are franticly working on all of them and are shouting things like “Hit up Z-73!” or “Jackpot on the usual!”
“What’s going on here?” I ask.”
“We have sensors that can pick up metal anywhere in a hundred mile radius, and that includes jewelry, coins and people, if they have machine halves of course. So this is the perfect time to make a little…profit” Spiderman says winking.
“So you guys are hackers?”
“Only the finest.”
“Could you hack into the main override system for this city?”
“I suppose, since all the guards will be frozen.”
“Good, there might be something useful there.”
We choose ten of the greatest hackers and travel though the strangely empty streets to town hall. Getting in is simple, there is nobody left to stop us.
We try for hours to reactivate the android halves, but finally we realize our efforts are futile. There is no way to save them.
“Solus…” Spidermonkey says, “they’re all going to die.”
We grimly look over at the ominous life ending switches, it is either that or have them all starve to death.
“Jim,” Spidermonkey says grimly, gesturing to one of the boys, “get a line out to every hacker gang in the world, tell them to hack into the main system and use the life ending switches.”
“The life ending switches … isn’t that too drastic? If you give us more time maybe…” Jim stammers.
“It’s the only way.” Spidermonkey growls.
Jim scurries away and we slowly walk to the switches, knowing what we have to do.
We work on them one switch at a time. I keep telling myself that they will die either way, that it’s better to end it quickly than have them die from starvation. But I feel so horrible, I know I am killing innocent babies and kind old ladies. I never met any of them, but I still care.
We’re down to only two switches, “Amare Deae” and “Solomon Kidsman.”
Spidermonkey nodded at me. “Your mom?”
“Yeah, Amare means devise.”
He sighs, “Solomon Kidsman, Snakeman, I always knew that he would die at the hand of one of his boys. But I never thought it would be me.”
We lay our hands on the switch, and knew that we were building a new world, one without machine halves. A world built up from the poor, the isolated, and the street gangs. A world I hope will never have to be rebuilt like this.
I flip the switch and end my mother’s life.