Extraction.
Several gasps rang out as the ball sailed up into the air.
It was going high. It was flying off,
far further than intended. Up and up it went and for a single dazzling moment
the shiny white ball seemed to glisten and touch the sun before descending over
the corrugated iron and barbed wire fence.
Nine faces crumpled in disappointment as the end of the game
was marked by the loss of the ball.
“Might as well go home” one girl sighed,” they don’t return
balls.”
At that most of the children nodded and turned heel towards
home but one just looked at the fence deep in thought.
“Come on Addy it’s time to go home. You know the rules you
can’t play football without a ball now can you?”
“But…
but… it’s just over there!” Addy protested.
“And?”
“There’s
a wobbly fence panel here! We could
squeeze through, get the ball and then get out again. No one would ever
know! It’s not like we’d be doing any
harm and we’d be giving them a hand removing our property from their yard” Addy
argued with wildly gesticulating arms.
“But if they did find us…”
“If”
Addy smiled as she approached the fence “it’ll be an adventure, a trip into
enemy territory to retrieve a fallen soldier or in this case my football.”
The retreating group turned and looked at her nervously with
their hands in their pockets and curiosity in their eyes. “Aren’t adventures a little bit risky?” One
boy enquired.
“They
aren’t called colouring with Mummy for a reason Jim!” Addy laughed as she
fingered the wobbly fence panel “I’m going to go in; you can follow me if you
like.”
As she started to yank at the fence Jim complained “I know
it’s a new football but you will get in less trouble if you tell your parents
than if you got caught.”
“Go
home to your Mummy Jim!” Addy shouted derisively before slipping through the
gap in the fence she created.
Once though she sought cover behind some dustbins which were
clustered by the fence. Although she had
made light of going after the ball her heart was facing and all the stories of
what happened to trespassers on robot territory came flooding back to her.
Some said that trespassers were dissected, others told of
them being eaten, the spotty babysitter that looked after her at the weekends
claimed that they liked to imprison, torture and sell off their prisoners. Addy wasn’t sure if any or all of the stories
she had heard were true. Even so she
felt sick with fear. It was foolish to risk her life to get the
football but she didn’t want to go back home either.
Nothing was better than running and jumping and kicking a
ball about. The feeling of the wind in
your hair as you raced for a goal was one of the best things she could think
of. Then again she wasn’t doing a great
deal of that at the moment as Jim had belted the ball far higher than any of them
had ever dared… right into the neighbouring robots garden.
Technically going after the ball was trespassing. It violated all the robot human relational
codes that had been set up thirty years ago after the big war but surely none
of that mattered if she didn’t get caught… besides it wasn’t like she’d broken
a window or anything. Her Mum had told
her stories of breaking a window in the neighbour’s greenhouse years before but
Addy struggled to understand as she’d never seen a greenhouse and when she asked
her friends they shrugged and asked if it was the colour a house was programmed
to look. Addy wondered that too but
didn’t want to ask her Mum about it in case she looked silly and besides that
probably wasn’t the point of the story in the first place.
With sweat starting to bead on her forehead Addy inched her
way around the bins and further into the garden stopping every few seconds to
look around for danger. The coast seemed
to be clear but the ball wasn’t as easy to spot. She had imagined that it would be right
there, ripe for the picking as it had sailed over so easily but that didn’t
appear to be the case. There was a lot
of long grass and some clumps of weeds up ahead so it had probably landed there
and at least she could duck down into it for cover if someone or something came
to get her.
Despite all the horror stories she had heard Addy found it
hard to see robots as the bogey man, they packed bags in the supermarkets and
helped assist the teachers in school.
Some were even made to fill the empty spaces in the classrooms that had
started to appear in recent years. It’s
hard to think of people, well robots as bad when they’re very nearly your
friends. But obviously they can’t be
your friends because robots don’t play. They don’t get out of breath when you
play tag or football and don’t see the point of hide and seek instead they…
what do they do? Charge? Addy wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that they didn’t study more as they already knew all
the answers they were just there to keep the schools from shutting. Some days she resented that and would do
anything from going but on others, well it was nice to be away from all the
shouting at home.
As she made her way through the long grass she stumbled on
branches and large stones until she caught sight of not one shiny white ball
but two! She was in luck! In her haste to get to the ball she started to run
but went flying on a large stick. Except when she started to pull herself up
she realised that it wasn’t a stick at all but an arm. A human arm! Well the bones of a human arm to be more
precise... She let out a short cry
before jamming her hand in to her mouth to stop herself. If they have an arm just lying around here
where is the rest of the body? Addy knew
the answer before even finishing the question.
She’d tripped and stumbled her way over the rest of the body on the way
there.
So she sat in the tall grass not far from the ball she had
come for but also not at all far from what she presumed was the last person to
come for their ball. The sweat that had
been beading on her forehead was now starting to pore down her face and into
her eyes. She started to cry at being so foolish. It was not as if it was
terrible being at home alone but she had really looked forward to playing with
her friends and being the star player for her team.
It was time to admit defeat and limp home without the ball
and serious maiming. Depite knowing
this Addy stubbornly took a deep breath, rubbed away the tears on
her cheek with the back of her arm then told herself that the skeletal arm
probably just belonged to a Halloween prop.
With that she started to crawl once more towards the balls, the big
clumps of weeds she passed were obviously overgrown plants and not landmines. They buried landmines didn’t they? Her
granddad used to tell her stories of the war all about landmines and heat
seeking technology but she never paid him much attention. Why should she when
she could be running around outside or playing with her toy cars? Besides he always said to her parents that
she wasn’t a proper girl, whatever that was supposed to be… it sounded boring
to her!
After much uncomfortable crawling she finally got to the two
balls, stopped and sat in front of them to examine them. The one on the right was obviously hers it was
white and shiny except for the small black scuff that Jim’s boot had made. And
yet the other ball was silver and shiny so she waivered as she went to pick up
her ball and it was at that point that the silver ball unfurled into a small
robot infant. “Hello!” It exclaimed looking at her with two small blue eyes.
Addy fell backwards in shock.
“Hello!” The small robot said to her again
leaning forwards slightly to make eye contact.
“But… but… you’re a robot!”
“Yeeesss”
the infant robot replied “but I was pretending to be a sphere.”
“You wanted me to think you were a ball?”
“No!”
The robot stated in frustration “no, I wanted to try being a sphere.”
“So you weren’t trying to trick me?” Addy started to hope
that maybe this robot toddler didn’t know about the rules and codes that she
was breaking.
“Who
are you?”
“I’m just a neighbour and my friend kicked my ball into your
yard so I’ve come to get it back” Addy confessed hoping that honesty was the
best policy.
“My
sphere-ball now!” The little robot told her as it moved over to the white ball
and extended a mechanical arm to the top of it.
Were this another child at the playground or a sibling in
the garden then Addy would have snatched the ball away and pushed them into the
dirt. Instead she gritted her teeth and
nodded, technically the robot was right the ball had become its property and if
she wanted to leave without any trouble then she needed to respect that. The ball was new and shiny though…
“Do you want to play with me?” Addy asked the little robot.
“Play?”
“Yes play” Addy repeated whilst trying to remember what the
robots at school refer to play as “the act of erm doing that you aren’t
programmed to do like pretending and running.”
“So
I have been playing at being a ball?”
“I guess..” Addy had to admit that she didn’t know anyone
who would pretend to be a ball but why would you? Maybe robot play was
different to human play…
“Would
you like to pretend to be a ball too?”
“Nooo... no thank you… you see balls are actually designed
to be played with. You throw or kick
them then chase after them” Addy explained as best she could.
“I
see… but why?”
“I don’t know.
Because it’s fun I guess…” Addy hazarded as playing was just something
she did, school, food and sleep just got in the way of it.
“Fun.
F u n… fun…” the robot repeated to itself.
“Is it a new word to you?”
“Not exactly but I am not sure I
can experience it as you do, when you run you use your cardiovascular system
and…”
“I know we’re different but have you ever tried just kicking
a ball and running after it?”
“Nooo…”
the robot replied looking more closely at the ball, then turned and stood up
with a whirr looked at Addy before winking and kicking the ball just past
her. Robots can’t wink Addy thought as
the little robot started tottering towards the ball, its lights must have
blinked or twinkled… but by the time she pondered this she had been overtaken.
She jumped up as the robot kicked the ball once more and ran
away with it so she started to chase after them and could feel the long grass
whipping against her legs as she went.
In front of her she could have sworn that she had heard a toddlers
laughter coming from the little robot, could she have taught it about fun?
Addy wasn’t sure about that but in spite of getting out of
breath she knew that she was gaining and it would only take a few more
steps. Just as she got within tackling
distance she trod on a lump of weeds that made a big clicking sound and sunk a
little under her foot.
The robot stopped, grabbed the ball and backed away “uh oh!”
Suddenly Addy remembered her granddad’s tales of landmines
and jerked her foot up only to be catapulted into the air with an enormous
blast before falling maimed and bloodied to the ground. The little robot had disappeared and the eyes
of the children staring over the fence had widened at the sight and they had
run away screaming just as quickly.
Addy screamed and wailed for help
where most of her lay as a red wetness started to cloud her vision. Maybe, just maybe adventures weren’t always
for the best after all…
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