Hitbot - a short sci-fi story by Ward Parkway

Hitbot

by Ward Parkway

The late afternoon sunlight shot smoky pillars of light through the passenger compartment's portholes. An endless sea of machine noise and angry metal signals howled outside. Crouched silently in a corner of the swaying zip car, the hitbot secretly shared the packed ride with the tired commeaters, headed home from their daily boxjobs in the metrogrid.

A lateral sweep with its tiny crystal eyelenses stopped at the tall middle-aged man seated up front. Executing a matchscan, a shower of recog hits began clustering on it's silicon retina. As a confirmation pattern quickly coalesced, an extermination glyph began flashing steadily on the newly-acquired target.

Activating a microjet, the 'bot non-chalantly released a misting of nanofog agents into an air vent near the littered floorboard. In less than a minute, the delt in seat 1B was melting into a pile of bloody clothing. Italian suit. Nice.

--