Automate by Eric DePriester

“It’ll make your job easier,” my boss said.

“It’ll take my job,” I said.

“Eventually.” He patted my shoulder and left me with the robot.

I crossed my arms and looked it over: a little steel tower with wheels and arms and panels, controls to who knows what.

It sat there. Waiting.

#         

The next day I looked closer, at the gadgets and gizmos and detailed instruction manual I couldn’t possibly finish. I drank more coffee, skimmed the manual, and made a few honest attempts, then resorted to brute force, slapped the steel and shook it, pressed every button and turned every dial and twisted and rattled and—

“Bee boop.” The robot came to life.

            #                     

“Who wrote this?” My wife held her birthday card.

“I did,” I said.

“‘You oscillate the microfibers of my being.’”

“It’s true.”

“What’s it mean?”           

“It’s poetry.”

She tapped the card. “Last chance.”

“The robot might have helped.”

“They gave you a robot?”

“A prototype. I’m programming it.”

She skimmed the card. “At least take your work seriously.”

#         

“I am,” I said.

“Explain this.” My boss dropped a BFD report on my desk, every page lousy with red.

“I’ll speak to it.”

He shook his head and left.

“You’re making me look like a fool.” I slapped the desk.

The robot booped a sad baritone.

“Do it like me, okay? Watch every step, and do it exactly that way.”

The robot flickered.

“Great.”

I cracked a fresh BFD and filled in every box and column with exacting accuracy, moved every muscle with more focus, the most efficiency, and I signed the last page and sealed the report.

“Do you need to see that again?”

The robot honked.

#         

Hello Team,

A quick update on the robot and it's progress.

The robot beeped.

“I know,” I said.

…its progress.

The machine has mastered basic creative tasks, including graphic design and…

The robot flickered.

…sentence construction. The next step is conscious thought and independent action, if we can call it conscious…

“Beep.”

“Don’t.”

#         

The robot honked at the spice rack.

“Fine,” I said. “You think you can do better?”

“Honk!”

“Be my guest.”

The robot whirled up a rub, dusted the ribs, and prepped the grill. Three hours later, they were done.

“Well done,” my wife said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I mean it. Your best yet.”

“My best ribs.”

“Your best anything.”

#         

My boss held a BFD report and beamed. “Now this is a BFD.”

“Right,” I said. “Which account?”

He looked me over, then the robot. “Did that—”

“The robot assisted, sure.”

“Can I—”

“It’s resting. Under repair.”

“When it’s back running, you wheel it into my office.”

“Will do.”

My boss left and the robot flickered.

“You had no right.”

“Beep.”

“Quiet. You’re under repair.”

“beep.”

“Silent.”

#         

My buddy sat in the corner with a cold one.

“How’s the robot?” he said.  

“Out of control,” I said and sat.

“I won’t say I told you so.”

“I had to bring it home, for repair.”

“And it can’t outdo you at home.”

I drank and drank again.

#         

beep,

I heard it from the driveway and knew something was wrong, I felt it down my spine, but I went inside and, beep beep, from down the hall, beep, and giggling, human giggling, beep, and my throat sank through my gut and I spun out but stayed standing, walking down the hall, to the beeping and the giggling, from the bedroom, my bedroom, and I cracked the door and saw them, together, and my gut sailed out my throat and onto the floor and the robot beeped and my wife screamed and next thing I’m standing over the son of a bitch with a hammer, swinging into steel, me screaming and it beeping and her yelling at the phone and clang clang clang…

Eric DePriester lives in Los Angeles. His fiction and poetry have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, The MacGuffin, and Five on the Fifth, among other publications. His feature film “Treason” was released in 2020, and his short film “Composure” in 2022.