The Automatons Part 2: Pictures, Notes, and Letters from The Edited

Author’s Note: This is Part 2 of a short series about Trisha who is a mother living in the world of The Automatons. Part 3 will be here next week so make sure that you subscribe if you want to get it straight to your inbox. If you haven’t read Part 1: Fitting Into the World of The Automatons then go read that so you know what’s going on! Otherwise I hope you enjoy this week’s instalment on Step Into The Road.

Trisha drank the chocolate milk it reminded her of her childhood as only smell and taste can. Her thoughts were about her examination with The Automatons. She was full of fear as the machine asked her questions from an emotionless plastic face. The things were originally built to resemble humans, and the final goal was for them to be human-like. But when The Fall happened, and the now sentient machines took control they halted all progress towards being mirrors of humans. They diverged and took the liberty of becoming a unique race. Part of that effort was adopting emotionless and expressionless faces.

Trisha remembered the examiner staring across the table at her. It asked her simple questions, things she had studied in school. Then it asked her to perform menial tasks. She alphabetized cards and organized different shaped blocks. The jobs were meaningless, but she didn’t ask why.

Milton always asked for more information. If Milton got his eyes on something that fascinated him he would immediately ask “Why?” If he saw a new image or a word he didn’t understand, he would interrogate anyone with questions. He only stopped when the mater was clear to him.

Her husband Peter did the same, except he knew when to keep his mouth shut as a kid. “Why are they keeping us around?” He would ask her when they were alone or in the right company. “They can do these tasks better than us. The work at The Mill is pointless. They could build machines to do it. Why are they asking us to be the brains and the brawn?”

Trisha finished the last of her chocolate milk and felt tears running down her cheeks. She cut into her omelet and began to eat. The omelete was less than halfway eaten when she noticed something was wrong with that too. On the plate and saw that there was something colorful under her food.

She rolled the omelet off to the side and found a small drawing. The omelet had covered the picture in grease, but the paper was waxy and stayed intact. She recognized it as Milton’s work immediately. It was creative, and nothing was the right color. It was two stick figures standing on purple grass. A blue sun shone on them.

She was confused. The only logical explanation she could come up with was that The Automatons were playing a trick on her. They had taken away everything, and they prepared this meal with these tricks so they could torture her more. But that wasn’t in their emotionless behavior.

She picked the paper off of the plate. As she lay the waxy paper down on the counter she caught a glimpse of the back. It wasn’t blank as she had expected nor did it have another drawing by Milton. A short note was penned in boxy and meticulous letters. It was Peter’s unmistakable hand writing.

Trish,

We are not gone. Come join us.

P&M

Trisha dried the paper off and folded it up. She hid it safely in her bedroom. Then to keep from being late Trisha darted out the door to go to The Mill.

After work, Trisha checked to make sure that the piece of paper was still hidden in her room. The two sentences didn’t give her additional information upon rereading.

She went back to work cleaning Milton’s room. In the past three days, she had converted most of his belongings into boxes and bags that would be “transported to him.”

Everyone knew the truth. The boxes would be sent to a dump or incinerated. This is what everyone believed happened when you were edited out. It was the dark truth of living in The Process. And until this morning Trisha had also accepted it as truth.

Milton’s room also had a small pile of things that Trisha could justify keeping. The Automatons were picky on what got to stay after the editing operation. Everything that belonged to the edited person had to go. The only thing Trisha would be allowed to keep were the things that were hers and happened to remind her of Milton.

The boy had written tons of stories and drawn even more pictures. Some were wonderful, and he was genuinely talented for such a young boy. But she could only find a few with her name on them. Without a name on it, she couldn’t prove it was hers. And If she couldn’t show it was hers, then she wouldn’t be able to keep it once The Automatons came to audit the boy’s room.

The boy had countless journals, and she was methodically flipping through every single one. She had gone through five and told herself she would look through one more before going to bed. She picked a small black journal out of the pile. It seemed older than the rest, and she assumed it would be filled with some of his first writings.

She opened it and for the second time that day she was faced with Peter’s boxy and meticulous penmanship. Her husband had filled every page with messages. Each one was addressed to their son.

She started skimming the book reading snippets here and there. After a few pages, she was able to find a theme. The book was instructions to her son on how to be creative and question things.

She felt hate and relief flood into her system. She was relieved because she now had proof she was not the one who trained her son to be edited out. Her husband had been influencing Milton since he knew how to read.

Trisha was also infuriated because her husband had been sabotaging her efforts. Pete had been the one who got Milton removed from her life and The Process. If the boy had never found this book, he would likely be safe here with her. But he wouldn’t be the same boy she raised. He would have never, reminded her so much of Peter.

Trisha flipped through every page of the book reading passages that stood out to her. Finally, she got to the last entry of the book. This entry was entirely different. Instead of being labeled for Milton, it was addressed to “Trish.”

The woman touched the page to see if it was real. Peter had been taken away from her so quickly that she hadn’t been able to have any last words with him. As she blinked back the tears to start reading there was a startling pounding on the door.

Trisha jumped and quickly stashed the book under some of Milton’s things mentally marking where it was. If this pounding were The Automatons coming early to clear out Milton’s room, she would be willing to put up a fight for the book of instructions.

The pounding continued incessantly, she quickly made her way to the door, expecting it to be the robotic figures. She opened the door, and Lauren fell onto her. The woman was sobbing hysterically. Trisha helped her into the house and sat her comfortably on the couch. Trisha asked questions, but the woman wasn’t responding. Lauren merely cried helplessly.

Trisha left to get some tea to calm the woman down. When Trisha returned, she gave the woman the hot drink, and Lauren calmed enough to say a few words. “They edited Will. He’s gone.” Then the sobbing started again.

How could they? Trisha thought. Then she said the only words that could come to her mind, “I’m so sorry.”

Things clicked into place for Trisha and she knew how why Will had been removed. Boys would be boys, and everything that Peter had passed down to Milton got passed along to Will. Will seemed to question as much as Milton did. Not to mention the two of them got along so well because they were both curious. While other kids would accept things with certainty, Will and Milton always talked together imagining some game or better way to do things.

Trisha had let Milton’s behavior slide for years and didn’t think anything of it. The boys were always polite. They never asked the same question twice, and once you gave them an answer, they would happily do the task. Lauren’s news about her son Will and how it was Milton’s influence that was causing Lauren so much pain right now. She blamed herself for not correcting Milton’s behavior sooner.

She comforted the woman as best she could. Lauren eventually explained how she had thrown a fit after she got the message about her son. She created an entire scene at The Town Hall. “I thought they would edit me out too,” she admitted. “And I didn’t even care! All I wanted was Will back.”

“I’m so sorry,” Trisha said. It was now her who was at a loss for words.

“Then I woke up on the couch. I had just heard Joe come in the door,” she continued. “He came home and wanted to know where Will was. Then the memories come back.” She started sobbing again, “I should have been more severe with will when he asked questions.”

“It’s my fault too.” Trisha heard herself saying. “I let a lot of things slide with Milton, and I’m sure he passed it along to Will.”

Trisha braced herself expecting the woman to go into a rage like she had the other day, but her loss had softened her. She cried, and Trisha looked for a way to console her more. “There might be hope.” She said to the crying mother.

“What hope? Once The Automatons edit someone, we know we will never see them again.”

Then Trisha started explaining the strange events of her day. Starting with the picture in her breakfast and ending with the letter from Pete addressed to Trisha.

Photo Credit: eocellus, ASU English Department, Meetusinghal, Ryan Tir, Keith Williamson, ASU English Department, Katie Tegtmeyer