7 A.M.
Bzz! Bzz! Bzz! Bzz!
I reached around in the air for the alarm clock, too tired to open my eyes. When I finally found it, I pressed the button to quiet the alarm and lay in bed for several more moments before getting up and getting ready to go to my first class.
After eating breakfast, I walked back into my room and saw that the alarm clock said “7:00 AM”. The alarm was supposed to go off at 7:00, and I had spent at least 20 minutes eating breakfast.
“Maybe it went off early,” I said to myself.
I put on my clothes, paying careful attention to the alarm clock. I began to feel uneasy, counting the seconds in my head.
57, 58, 59…
The time on the alarm clock didn’t change. I assumed it was busted, so I grabbed my phone, which was sitting next to it, and when I turned it on, I found that it had the same time as the alarm clock. I pressed the browser icon and immediately got a page saying the internet wasn’t connected. My WiFi tended to be come-and-go, but my data was reliable, and I didn’t understand how both could be down at the same time. I dialed the number of a friend, but there wasn’t a response. I went through all 50 of my contacts, calling each and every one of them, but none of them replied.
I started to panic. Every single horrible thought went through my mind at once. I ran outside. There weren’t any birds singing, any dogs barking, any sign of life anywhere. I got into my car and started driving down the road, hoping I would see something, anything to keep me from going insane. It didn’t help when I turned on the radio and got static on every channel that I switched to. Four or five minutes later, I saw something that was crazier than anything I had ever seen up until that moment.
What I saw was a pileup, a pileup so huge it had essentially been a mountain of cars, one I’m sure could be seen from space. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of cars within it, and I as I started driving towards it, I noticed there were none of the mangled bodies one would expect to see in such destruction. I had to stop my car because of all the broken glass in front of it, and as I walked closer, I saw that there was nobody inside the cars, either. Whoever had driven them disappeared as if it were all some kind of magic act.
“Is anybody in there?” I shouted.
Silence. I had gotten used to it by now.
I walked back to the car and drove in another direction. I must have been driving for hours. I couldn’t really tell because the time inside the car, just like the time everywhere else, remained at 7:00 AM. As I drove, I thought about articles I had been up until two in the morning reading, about researchers at my university creating this robot with the ability to rapidly learn new skills. It could already talk convincingly like a human, and it able to do things like use a hammer and fold laundry after watching people do it only once. The possibilities with the robot seemed to be endless, and in medical fields especially, it had the potential to do a lot of good.
There wasn’t much good to be done if I was the last person on the planet, though, and fortunately, that turned out not to be the case when I saw a homeless man, no younger than 50, with long white hair and a beard, playing a guitar on the side of the road. He had a cup beside him. I fished into my pocket, pulled out a $20 bill, rolled down my window, and dropped the bill into his cup.
“Thank you very much, sir,” said the homeless man.
I was about to roll up my window again, but then I realized this was the best chance I had to get answers. “Do you know where everybody went?”
“No, but I have noticed there are fewer cars coming by here. In fact, yours is the first one I’ve seen all day.”
“Well, I’m glad to see somebody else.” I paused for a moment. “Want to come in?”
The homeless man looked surprised. “I wouldn’t want to burden you.”
“No, I want the company. Besides, I doubt you’ll be seeing any more cars anytime soon.”
The homeless man thought for a moment. “Okay. Is it all right if I bring Lucy with me, though?”
“Who’s Lucy?”
The homeless man pointed to his guitar.
I laughed. “Yeah, Lucy can come along.”
The homeless man put his guitar in the back seat of my car, and then he got into the passenger seat.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked him.
“Frank,” he said.
“How long have you been homeless, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Been over six months now,” he said. “Lost my house to my ex-wife, and couldn’t afford to buy a new one.”
“Couldn’t you move into an apartment or something?”
“Rent nowadays is sky high. The only reason I was able to buy my old home was because of an inheritance I got when my grandmother died.” He looked out of the window. “Yep, Lucy took everything I had, ‘cept for the clothes on my back.”
“Wait, Lucy? You named you named your guitar after her?”
Frank sighed. “I still love her.”
We were quiet for a long time. I started driving again.
“So, where are we headed?” asked Frank.
“I don’t know. Wherever there’s people,” I replied.
“What if there aren’t any more people?”
I didn’t want to think about that, so I ignored the question. He didn’t seem interested in exploring it any further, anyway. I kept driving until well into the night. Frank didn’t say anything else. He just looked out the window every now and then, something clearly on his mind.
“This is probably a good place to stop,” I said. “We’ll sleep in that motel over there, then we’ll continue driving in the morning.”
Frank had a look of concern on his face. “Do you remember who I am, Cody?”
“H-how do you know my name? I never told you.” At least, I thought I never told him.
“Where are you right now, Cody?”
I was getting increasingly irritated by his questions.
“What do you mean ‘where am I’? I’m in my car!”
“Do you really think you’re in your car?”
My irritation turned to anger.
“Of course I’m in my car! Where else would I be?”
“You’re in the hospital right now, Cody. You just woke up from a coma.”
I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. “No. You’re lying. Why are you lying? I should have left you on the side of the street, hobo!”
“Do you remember Lucy?”
“Yeah, she’s your guitar…and your wife.”
“No, Cody. Lucy is the name of the robot you helped me and my team of researchers create. The robot that became so intelligent it learned how to create other robots. The robot that nearly destroyed us all.”
Suddenly, I remembered the articles I read last night, only now I was in them. I remembered standing in front of the mountain of cars, which was now a mountain of robots. I was holding a rifle, prepared to shoot if one of the robots sprang back to life. I remembered the feeling of terror. The feeling of having lost everybody close to me, except Frank, whose research team perished at the hands of the robots and who barely managed to escape them himself.
I sat up in the bed. The hospital was very old, and most of the equipment was outdated, including the clock on the wall, which appropriately enough, was stuck at 7:00 AM.
“How long have I been out?” I finally asked.
“Five years,” said Frank.
I shuddered. “Are the robots gone, at least?”
“Yes, we won the war against them,” said Frank. “At a great cost.”
“How great a cost?”
“It’s hard to come up with exact figures, but at least 90% of the population.”
I wanted to cry. How could I have been part of something so destructive? I wanted to do something great for humanity, but instead, I almost brought about its end.
“Don’t be sad, Cody,” said Frank. “You’re back. Just be happy that you’re back.”
The tears finally came out. But they weren’t the tears of sadness I expected. I was happy to be back. Despite everything, I was happy to be back in the real world.