The Kid knew he was running late to the film. He was stuck outside of the theater, sitting on a very fancy and equally uncomfortable wooden bench across the street from the theater entrance. He hadn’t anticipated that there would be two autonomous guards blocking the side entrance of the building, who were both keeping a very close watch on he and the surrounding passersby. He also hadn’t anticipated an armed nuclear warhead to be resting nonchalantly against the doors of the front entrance. Luckily, there was no warhead. But there were most certainly guards.
The side entrance was down a decrepit alleyway to the right of the main entrance. On most days that particular entrance of the theater was clear save for the lone security camera over the side door. This camera was easily avoided though if one moved along the building wall directly underneath the camera. Today was different though. Security had been significantly increased, most likely due to an increase in break-ins over the past month. The theater was a popular destination to any and all patrons. Everyone from the auto mechanics, the town’s most prestigious lawyers, the local homeless failures: they all loved the cinema. The Kid, unfortunately, belonged to the latter group. So seeing as that he could not afford a ticket, the risk of sneaking in was his price of admission.
Many others in similar situations (and others simply looking for cheap thrills and cheaper films) followed suit. Hence the now higher barrier to entry in the form of two foreboding, robotic security guards. But the extra security wasn’t going to keep The Kid from trying. There is very little that could sway him from enjoying his usual Thursday Throwback film at the downtown ATAP Theater.
The Kid was once a strapping young man starting a new chapter in his life, confidently taking his first steps into the world of self-sufficiency. After receiving a film degree from a rather prestigious university in Eastern Canada, he moved to the United States to pursue his dream career as a film director. Like most starry-eyed creatives hoping to turn their wildest dreams into stunningly beautiful reality however, he ended up on the extreme end of poverty. He now resides in whatever shelter he can find, spending his time tinkering with things he picks up from trash bins and sneaking into movie theaters on a daily basis. The worst part of the story is that this all transpired within the past couple of months. Just last year the Kid was having a blast directing scenes and writing scripts with his peers in university. Now he’s sitting on a very uncomfortable bench, unclean and unshaven, smelling like rotten hamburger meat mixed with cat urine and just a dash of burnt hair, pondering how he can break into a movie theater.
He formulated his plan. He knew that, like humans, robots could be easily manipulated if you knew their weaknesses. These particular guards were rather basic units that mostly functioned as slightly more advanced walls. They had digital voices, a limited vocabulary of authoritarian phrases, and could move about in most environments without too much trouble. But they were sluggish as far as movement goes, and he knew he could outrun them if the situation called for it. These guards also had monitoring systems that would record his face and features if he didn’t cover himself somehow. Luckily for him, he had found an old, torn up, semi-transparent bed sheet in the dumpster outside of one of the rundown motels on the south side of town. The sheet smelled like it had previously been used as a replacement for a cat’s litterbox, but he had been using it as extra layering at night and it worked well as long as he only inhaled through his mouth. But the sheet could serve a new purpose today.
The Kid considered throwing the sheet over the guards to block their vision, but the sheet had so many holes that he worried the robots’ monitors might see through one of them. He decided to use the sheet as a mask for himself instead, despite his lack of enthusiasm for having to wrap an insufferably foul smelling sheet of mysterious origins around every inch of his noggin. His initial plan was to bolt towards the guards, shove one to the side, and keep running in the hopes that they would give chase, giving him an opportunity to loop around the block and return to the door before the guards could return. But these bots would be too heavy to push and would likely end up seizing him if he tried such a maneuver and wasn’t quick enough. What he needed instead was a distrac-
BOOM! Coincidence struck! Suddenly a group of five exceptionally unruly teenagers came running towards the guards from the other side of the alley, wielding baseball bats, crowbars, and other equally rebellious objects. They each had on a thick monster-themed mask, and under their masks they each likely had a face, but the guards monitoring systems would never be able to tell that. With the power of anonymity, they sauntered up to the side entrance of the ATAP, looking to the Kid like a group of cocky mobsters from an old gangster flick. From their demeanor, it was quickly made obvious that the objects they were wielding were not about to be used as they were originally intended.
“Please move along. This area is off limits” one of the guards asserted, sensing that the approaching group was a potential threat.
“Let’s get through these autos quick! Showtime’s in ten minutes and I wanna catch the new Duststorm Derby trailer” piped the tallest teenager from behind his Godzilla mask.
And with that, the group charged ahead with all of the fury of their angst-filled existence. They swung fiercely at the guards, planning to reach the inside of the sanctuary that was the movie theater by brute force if necessary. The Kid watched the scene play out from the uncomfortable safety of his bench. The teenagers had numbers on their side, but they were obviously not in peak physical condition. The rebellious rarely have time for physical exercise. They fought hard though. Two of the bigger teens were pummeling the first guard while the remaining three were combatting the other. The alley had become an echo chamber, reverberating a cacophony of clinks, dings, and crunches. The pedestrians passing by seemed more annoyed than anything by the raucous racket, quickening their pace as they approached the alley and returning to average speed once out of earshot.
The numerous but weak teens put up a good brawl for a while, but after a few minutes their energy reserves were running thin, and the guards didn’t have much more than a couple of dents to show for the entire ordeal. All at once the teens realized that they likely wouldn’t be seeing the Duststorm Derby trailer tonight, and were in fact in danger of seeing the inside of a jail cell if they didn’t get out of there in a hurry. Like an agitated swarm of cellar spiders, the teens scattered, dashing off into different directions down connecting alleys. The guards gave chase, splitting off and, calculating which of the group would be easiest to catch, went after the two scrawniest teens in the allegiance.
This was his moment. The Kid bolted off his bench and across the street towards the alley, but before he could make it past the sidewalk he tripped. On what, he did not know. He was too busy falling to inquire. Slamming his knee on the unforgiving concrete with a harsh KAUGH, he rolled for a few feet and ended up lying face down on the sidewalk with what would soon become an incredible welt on his right knee. He was in pain, but the adrenaline of the moment numbed the sensation significantly. He maneuvered himself onto his back, sat up to inspect his knee, and, upon deciding it most likely wasn’t broken, looked to see exactly what it was that had tripped him. On the sidewalk about 7 feet from his position was a small robot, no more than 2 feet tall, picking itself up from its own fall, and staring intensely at him with it’s glowing, digital eyes. Seemingly studying him and his every move as though the kid were some extraordinary creature from the far side of the planet.
The Kid hobbled to his feet to brush himself off hoping that the robot, upon seeing that he was alright, would continue on its way. But the robot never released its gaze. The Kid couldn’t help but to stare back into it’s luminous eyes, feeling as though he were either experiencing a deep intellectual connection with this mystery automaton or holding his ground in a spontaneously intense staring contest. Upon realizing his moment of opportunity for getting into the theater was creeping away behind him, he thrust his eyes away from the little bot and made a mad dash to the back entryway of the theater, still hobbling from his fall, and all the while being watched by the same set of glowing eyes.