I found myself once more at a crosswalk I wait at daily on my way to work. Various pedestrians and drivers wait for the lights to change so they can go on their way. Myself included in the wait.
The light I'm waiting for turns green and I take two steps before one of the newer models of sports car slams on the brake. The driver deciding at the last second that he would rather not run a red light. A minivan with a bedraggled mother driving it, stops just short of a fender bender with the muscle car, coming to rest inches from the bumper.
The muscle car has left me in an odd position. I can't pass behind it, and walking in front of it would put me in moving traffic. I can see the pedestrian on the other side of the car trying to figure out how to cross the road the same as I am. The difference being the other pedestrian is a eight hundred pound robot.
The robot looks one way, then the other, then at the hood of the car. The red dot that indicates it's point of visual focus glances at the driver, then returns to the hood of the car. I watch as the robot steps on, then walks across the muscle car. The driver swears and jumps out of his less than pristine vehicle.
"What are you doing!" The driver shouts!
"Crossing the road, and overcoming obstacles." The robot replies.
The driver pulls an aluminum baseball bat out of his car. "You don't just walk across someone's car! Not without expecting payback!"
"You don't stop in a crosswalk. Not without expecting pedestrians. I'm leaving now. I have somewhere to be."
The driver shouts in rage and swings at the robot with his bat. The robot's chassis is a lighter model (which feels odd to say about a 800 lbs humanoid) So the swing does some damage. The driver shouts and makes as much of a scene of the situation as he knocks the robot to it's knees and continues to pummel it.
Suddenly the robot's left hand rotates into the robot's forarm swapping out for the barrel of a pistol. The robot still facing you, rotates its head, and bends it's elbow backwards. I quietly enjoy the look of terror on the driver's face as he backs into the destroyed hood of his car.
"Bang!" The robot cries. Oddly enough to almost cover the sound of his pistol going off. The pistol leaves the driver completely unharmed. In fact, I think the pistol made the beep a barcode scanner makes.
"Have fun with the feds, meat bag."
The driver just screams more expletives and smashes the robot down into the pavement. The robot leaves the driver with another strange taunt.
"Guess I'll just wear a different body to work today. I'll pick up another one to replace this tonight."
The driver just screams incoherently in response and knocks the ocular light out of the robot. The driver gets back into his car and speeds off into the intersection, oddly enough catching the prone robot's foot at an angle to where it scratches the paint the length of the car.
I think I hear a "Heh" from the robot, but can't be certain. I pull the robot to the curb, with the help of other passers-by to prevent it from destroying a passing car. I arrive to work four minutes late because of this.
Later that night.
I find myself sitting in my chair in front of my TV. Enough plans have fallen through tonight, that I find myself flipping through cable TV. (It was just going on an adventure with the dog, but he wasn't interested tonight) A familiar face appears on the screen. The driver of the muscle car is on the nightly news.
"The Federal Beuro of Investigation has found Michael Kowalski with twelve gigabits of child pornography on his phone. When questioned he blamed robot's showing open Sapientism against non-hiumans..."
I turn the TV off. "That has got to be the most terrifying gun I have ever seen." I say to myself.
"It's only my fifth most devastating weapon." My TV tells me as it stands up on legs I don't remember it coming with. The TV turns and walks out my front door.
"Well. I guess I'm out seven hundred bucks." I say to the room.
The TV already taking the shape of the robot on the street turns it's gun on me.
"Bang!" (beep!)
I claw my phone out of my pocket as quickly as I can and after a frantic search find my history untouched. As I call myself down I find that someone has put seven hundred dollars in my banking app. Someone has also put a good sized poop in my shorts, but seeing as I'm wearing them and I was the only person with an intestinal tract in the room, the fault likely lays with me.
"Well that was interesting." Something chirps from just outside my still open door.
