Today's #flashfiction #MechanicalReaper

“It's all a matter of getting your foot in the door.”

The Sasquatch* #quote

          Tomorrow family will be flying in for Thanksgiving. I bet much fun will be had on that day and Thanksgiving and until they leave on Saturday. (Though I suppose I can find a way to have some fun shenanigans by myself after they leave.) Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Mechanical Reaper

         Timothy Rain, eighty years old with a serial number of XY-99-001-78921. His friends called him Tim, his older brother called him Timmy, his children called him Dad, his grandchildren called him grandpappy. A machine's children were created by the Management to be taken care of and raised by them and the Management came to upgrade and age them. Emulation of humanity came as a standard so they could perform whatever functions humanity desired. Whether Management shipped them off to Earth or they stayed on Mars, otherwise known in 2200 A.D. as the Planet of Machines.

         Timothy's doorbell rang. He pulled out his plugs and walked to it. Every time he heard the doorbell he felt thankful to born as an advanced machine built to emulate a human and live a good life instead of a mindless drone model. He wondered who it could be? There were no upgrades or repairs on his old body scheduled by Management. He would have gotten an email about that.

When he opened the door Management did greet him. Management's bureaucratic nature made them send notifications on nearly all their functions. However one thing they did not notify robots about was when they sent a Reaper.

         Reapers probably had names robots assumed. But they never introduced themselves. And they only said what they needed to. The Reaper at Timothy's door looked the same as all the others. Six metal hands with claw-like nails and robotic eyes in their palms floated along with a large metal ball body. Reapers linked with the gravitational control system of the planet to allow themselves to float and subdue whoever they needed. Gravity control is given to few. Panels on the Reaper's body opened up and speakers appeared.

        “Timothy, your time is up. Resistance, as you know, will only make this more difficult for you and your loved ones.”

         The Reapers came unannounced so that robots would put less resistance. Management gave sentient robots semi-random, predetermined lengths of life before they are recycled so they would work without thinking of their impending death. Timothy accepted the fortune of his long, eighty year life as given to him by Management, and he went off with the Reaper.