Prologue

Who would’ve guessed, in 2 years so much could change. I remember the old days. A human mailman used to hand deliver mail, shelves stocked by hand, hundred of men and women piled up on conveyor belts building god knows what. Those were the days, now everything’s so streamline. I watched, day by day, as we were removed. Each day, another one of us gone and replaced by one of those things. Now, that’s not to say it wasn’t nice, they were faster, stronger, smarter than the rest of us. The work days began to get shorter as more were employed. I thought I was safe, we thought we were safe. I was a good, hard working man but there will come a day when all jobs will suffer from this process. Regardless, it’s a part of our life now, it doesn’t matter how we may feel at this point. They’re a staple in society, now my son, it’s all about how we use them.

The story begins......

I don’t know how long it’s been. Us living like this, I can’t say it’s a bad life, we have a home, we have food, clothes, but more importantly we have each other. That’s what my dad says, but I can’t be sure. Detroit isn’t the same, I remember this city used to be so nice. As these androids started to move in everything started to change. I was watching the news earlier and they said that all this started 2 years ago, in 2018. Something about scientists doing some researched on a “deep learning” artificial intelligence. DLAI they called them. They would learn more about people and what they wanted and needed from experience. In 2019 this was improved upon with the DLAIs having the ability to take orders as well as having personality. They started being used as maids and such, they could clean within the hour and tend to whatever you needed. As time passed people started to use them as a cheap workforce. It began with just stuff like mailmen and cashiers but in 2020, it got out of hand.  

"Dad why are we here?" "My boss called me to report here immediately."

"Oh, is everything ok?" "Yes, it should be, don't worry son." "Ok dad."

People started losing jobs. Thousands of people just laid off for these machines, as more were fired they only got angrier. My dad said there’s nothing that could be done, the government and these big corporations were making big bucks so they wouldn’t change anything. We used to have a good place, a house. Painted as white as snow, we had a little roomba that would clean our floors and carpets, a nice flat screen, we were “living the high life” as my dad would say. During the day my dad would go to work the factory, he worked on the conveyor belts building checking to see if the car parts were built correctly. While he was at work I was forced to go to school. By the time I would get home, he would already be there with dinner cooked or if I was really lucky, he would bring in takeout. It was the same old everyday until one day he got a call. He was called back into work by his boss to have a talk. I had no homework that day so I tagged along, and well I can’t say that don’t regret the decision.

"You called for me sir?" "Ah, yes, we need to talk about your time here." "What about my time? Is there a problem?" "No, not a problem, you've been a great worker, but we have to let you go, we have found the future of this business." "What?!!! I've done everything I could!" "It's not good enough, we found something better." I wasn’t allowed into the room, but it wasn’t hard at all to understand what was happening. It had finally happened, my dad was being replaced by one of those androids. That was the angriest I’ve ever seen my father. He was screaming at his boss, “How could you do this to me, I've done so much for this factory and this is how you treat me! Do you even know how many hours of sweat I’ve spent in that room, I worked 14 hours of overtime in this past week alone!” I remember his boss trying to calm him down but he just kept going, it went for a good 10 maybe 15 minutes until be barged out and we left. He spent the whole car ride ranting about how he had done so much and they treated him like garbage, something they could use and throw away when they’re with him. I just nodded, back then I didn’t realize how much that would impact us in these coming months.

"Dad where's the food?" "This is all I can afford, without my job I have no income."

"Oh no!" My dad began job hunting almost immediately, but everywhere he went it was the same situation. There was nothing open, everything was being done by androids. It felt like a day passed and we being evicted. After some major hassling and a really over exaggerated sob story, the landlord agreed to give us an apartment for free, or at least until we got back on our feet. Eventually I was sent back to school, I was buried in makeup work but I got through it. I was given a key to get into the house on my own, 9 times out of 10 my father wouldn’t be home but he would leave food. Almost always fast-food, mainly Wendy's. Not like I was complaining. Some days I would come in and find him staring into space, deep in thought as he liked to call it. One day I came home, and he was off in his dreamland. I sat down and he asked me, “Do you think I should do it?” I turned towards him, “Do what?” He sat up and looked me in my eyes and said, “I was thinking of going back to college, I want to get trained to do maintenance on those androids.” I remember giving him the most puzzled look, why would he want anything to do with those things after what they had done to him. “Look, I know its weird,” he said, “Like why would I want to help them but I have a reason, they’re actually not that bad. They’re just like us, I met one and well I did something that I regret, but he forgave me. As it turns out androids have it just as bad as us if not worse.” He began to explain that while job hunting he found one of those androids, it was wearing a his old job uniform and he lashed out of it. He didn’t specify what he said but from his face I could tell they weren’t exactly his kindest words.

"The amount of food is going down more and more."

"I can't do anything, all the jobs were taken by these robots that do the job better than humans."

"I'm starving!"

Afterwards he apologized and they started up a conversation. Androids don’t have anywhere to live, since everyone dislikes them almost everyone rejects them and won’t allow them to live in their apartments or buy a home. Many of them live on the streets, leading to them getting damage that will most likely not be repaired because no mechanic wants to touch them. As well as other androids cannot mess with each others programming or even make edits to their bodies, this was set in place to prevent one of those “robot uprisings” like in the movies and such, so only humans can make repairs to DLAI’s. I don’t know what it was but my dad had a shimmer in his eyes when we talked about it. I hadn’t seen him like that in some time, so naturally I told him to go for it. He’s my dad, and pretty much the only family I got so I’ll support him to the very end.