They have control rooms, high up by the ceiling. They look like old stadium press booths. Guards keep watch. When the lights go out they trip a switch. Everyone falls asleep simultaneously. The cerebral chips take care of that. But my chip doesn't work. Figure I must have had a mini-stroke and the blood 'did something' to it. Don't know why the central console didn't pick it up, but it didn't. So I don't sleep. Up above, the guards talk to each other and eat. I can see them through the glass. Truth is, I can't tell if they're Earth people , or aliens. Maybe mostly aliens with one or two 'Good Humans (specially chosen collaborators)?'
Sometimes I whisper, looking for other 'insomniacs.' Sometimes I crawl around on my hands and knees. So far, I'm the only one. I creep back to my cot and watch the control rooms. Soon I fall asleep too.
'Eyes Open' comes at 6AM. We're robots... full sized, human robots. Guess it's cheaper to fit us up with all kinds of neurological chips than build A.I's from scratch. First comes pee time. Big irrigated troughs. Then 'sanitation,' as we all file through a thick, antiseptic showery mist...raggedy clothes and all. Heat lamps and fans dry everybody up real fast.
Breakfast is mealy worms and boiled buckwheat. Actually very nutritious. Then we shuffle off. The chips know the way. We don't. Some type of physical drudgery lasts til lunch (tofu and other crap)... More drudgery til sundown... Shuffle back... Night feed... Crap time... Coloring books and crayons... Piped in muzak.... Lights Out.....
Thus us life.
This is going to have to be a short post. One of the guards noticed me. I know. He motions. He points. Must have seen me moving around last night. 'Irregular' units get culled... and I want to live a little longer...
Let me sleep... or at least pretend to sleep. Let me survive. Let me dream.
I'm lucky... I can still do that...
<more next time>
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