By: Stephen Chen
“You are not humans!?” I asked the “people” beside me. I can feel that there is a big difference between me and these humans. They don’t have normal body temperature as a human, but cold and biting. Their faces were metal. Some had multiple arms. When I woke up after 100 years, the world changed a lot.
100 year ago, some colleagues and I had run an experiment. All of us were involved in this future planning and wanted us to see what would happen in exactly 100 years. The government offered us the best equipment and a large place to start it. As for me, I don’t really remember how the machine worked during that time. But now, I wasn’t in my lab. I was in a large and beautiful building. Trying to get covered from the long-time trip, I got out of the equipment and walked around. These robots allowed me to take a look at the street. To my surprise, I saw many robots which acted like real people. I asked some questions to test if they can actually understand what I was saying: “Wait, what time is it now?” I asked a robot in the street, but I cannot hear any answer. Finally, I saw a number on its face: 2200.
I slept for 180 years!
The city is so quiet that I can only hear my voice myself-possibly the only person on earth. That’s true, in a city or even a country, there might be nobody except these clever, advanced, and various robots, which are very similar to real people in many ways.
The vehicle I used in this city is a flying car. Some robots drove me around to let me learn more about society and law. I can clearly see that the first law of the robot’s world as a poster on the wall of a high building is: every single robot mustn’t hurt people. That’s interesting, I thought.
I realized that maybe I would never find my colleagues. All of their machines must have opened at the right time. Of course, that was just my thoughts. They might still be around.
With a passion for finding a human, I started a long and unbelievable trip. After that, I went to a lot of different regions and saw many unique robots. They were likely to be a version of the human, although they were not alive. At last, I arrived in a scary city. It was dark and foreboding, and as soon as I set foot in there, I heard a loud warning sound, and every strong robot I could see turned towards me and advanced.
“Why do you guys arrest me, you all have to obey the law!” I screamed as I struggled in their iron grips. I couldn’t believe that these robots in other countries don’t have the same laws as what I saw before. No, I have to find a way to leave here. A few days passed, and I couldn’t even figure out where I was when suddenly a human voice echoed from somewhere close: “who are you?”