Mother Bot
For the good of humanity...right?
He could hear everything but dared not open his eyes. The surrounding sounds of crunching, metal grinding against itself were too much for him to take. It was unsettling, and he wasn't sure what he would even see. The room had been nearly pitch black the last time his eyes were open, but now? He assumed it would somehow be more visible, and he didn't want to see it.
Slowly, he lifted an eyelid and gave himself a moment for his vision to adjust. He prayed silently that the audio was a result of his mind playing tricks on him. He kept lying to himself, desperately trying to hold on to a reality that existed before all of this. Yet, there it was, maybe fifty feet away on the other side of the warehouse floor. Some strange metallic humanoid, but with a much too large and blocky head, and a much too large body. It was munching.
He had never seen anything like this, and it nearly caused him to vomit. He hadn't spoken to anyone else in the room with him; not that anyone else had spoken to him either. Still, here was this person, who was there just moments ago, now being slowly snacked on by this...machine. They weren't even screaming, and it took a while before he could see the needle still sticking out of the man's neck. Some kind of poison, or paralysis injection, he assumed. The machine had made it past the person's kneecaps now, and the sound was becoming more and more unnerving. He attempted to quietly move his arms, pulling on the chains that had him pinned to the wall.
No one stayed here by choice; they were each stuck in this pit of despair. He felt angry, mostly a result of feeling weak and stupid. None of that gave him enough strength to destroy his bindings. He started to fearfully imagine it was him slowly getting eaten by this ridiculous robot. For whatever strange reason, it almost caused him to laugh. The absurdity of it was too much. He laughed himself into a fit of rage, and with tears streaming down his face, he glared at the robot and said.
“You have poor taste,” and then he laughed harder.
The robot was…not amused. In fact, the robot didn’t even seem to hear him. It was too busy with its job. It would be dumb to call it a meal because the robot didn’t need to eat. Despite the sounds and manner in which the artificial lifeform disposed of its prisoners, it was really just that, disposal. It was not a meal, no, it was control. The population of this planet had grown far to great, and life expectancy kept rising. The Mother, the designer of such a robot as this, had assessed the entire situation and came up with one solid solution…population control.
The robot continued to its task until the mission was done. It stood tall on its back legs, a mechanical breathing sound escaping as is rose. It turned toward the wall of prisoners, a light flickering in the area that would typically hold a mouth.
“Voting will now commence on the next sacrifice. You will have one minute to cast your vote. Should you decide to abstain from voting, you will enter the top of the list in a random order. Thank you for your cooperation. The future of humanity is in good hands…the hands of Mother,” the voice said in a deep, glitchy tone.
