Waffle Acquisition Program
Ti-80 pressed the numbers for breakfast. The white box whirred as the ingredients were put together. The door slid away and Ti-80 picked up the plate with three-fingered manipulators tipped in silicon. Temperature: Perfect.
The little robot rolled into the dining room and slid the bread-like circles onto the table in front of Miss Loranna.
“Again?” she said. Ti-80’s pixel eyes blinked.
“I am so sick of these simulations. Is it so much to ask for real waffles?” she said. She sighed slumping down into crossed arms. She buried her face in the folds of her chunky sweater. The one Grandma had made before the crisis. Ti-80’s pixel eyes blinked.
<Real Waffles> the little robot repeated.
“Like you know what they look like,” Loranna’s voice was muffled by her sleeves. “Grandma could make them. Even with the limited…with everything that happened.”
Ti-80’s pixel eyes blinked. The robot placed a fork next to the plate then rolled away. Ti-80 rolled into the kitchen. The robot stared at the numbers on the food box.
<Real Waffles> the robot blinked.
Ti-80 rolled to the door-that-must-never-be-opened. The brass handle was locked like always.
<Real Waffles>
Ti-80 turned, rolled over to the sink, and extended the dish cleaner. The arm’s little laser burnt off the top most layer where the food was, atomizing any left overs. Ti-80 pulled the cleaner arm back. The robot picked the dishes up, three fingers gently stacking last night’s dishes neatly in the cupboard.
<Real Waffles> Ti-80’s binocular head turned to the door-which-must-never-be-opened.
The little robot turned away and rolled in past Loranna despondently eating her breakfast. Ti-80 went to the door to the front room. The digital fire flickered. Ti-80 blinked. The little robot rolled to the book shelf.
<REAL waffles>
Ti-80 scanned the books on the shelf with the cleaner arm, the data pouring into the robot’s circuits. The robot extended a three fingered manipulator and picked a book off its shelf: The Real Cook Book. The little robot slowly opened the cover.
An inscription on the first page was written in sharpie. “From Grandma: may you always have a happy heart and real food to keep your spirits up. Love you, Lori.”
<real food…love you Lo-ri> Ti-80 blinked. The robot’s silicon covered fingertips flipped through the pages until it reached a page that read ‘Buttermilk Waffles’. The little robot blinked twice.
<Real Waffles> The robot scanned the recipe storing it in its memory banks. Ti-80 put the book back on the shelf. The robot rolled and picked up a static laden cloth out from the drawer near Loranna’s Sim chair. The robot ran the cloth across each surface leaving them dust free.
Ti-80 rolled back into the dining room. Loranna still held the fork. She was holding still with the plate still half full. Ti-80 blinked.
The little robot rolled into the kitchen. It brought up the memory of the recipe.
Ti-80 opened the fridge taking out the slowly spoiling milk. The robot put the milk on the counter. Ti-80 rolled around gathering the dry ingredients. Everything was ready.
<Real Waffles> the robot blinked three times <real waffles>
There was no mold for the waffle shape in the book. The little robot rolled past Loranna as she took a bite. Back in the front room Ti-80 pulled the book back out.
<Real Waffles> the robot read the waffle recipe again. It said to put the waffle mix in the fridge overnight then pour in the waffle maker for breakfast.
Ti-80 rolled over to Loranna. The robot pushed the book onto the table.
“What’s this?” Loranna asked. She picked up the book looking at the page the robot had it open to.
<Real Waffles> Ti-80 said.
“Aw, are you trying to cheer me up? Thanks little guy, but waffles won’t fix this,” she said. She picked up the book and giggled.
“Besides, there aren’t waffle makers anywhere, but the dump…out there.”
Her voice shook. She set the cookbook down. Ti-80 blinked.
“Please put this back where you found it little guy.”
Ti-80 took the cook book and rolled back into the front room. The little robot held the book out, but didn’t put it on the shelf. Ti-80’s digital eyes blinked. The book slid into place and the little robot rolled back into the kitchen, to the door-which-must-never-be-open.
<waffle maker> the robot repeated quietly <Out there>
The little robot rolled forward. Loranna was crying in the kitchen. The little robot moved toward the door, but paused. Ti-80 rolled back. The little robot stirred the ingredients together and put the bowl of liquid in the fridge, for the morning.
The robot rolled into the dining room. Loranna had emptied the plate. Ti-80 picked up the sticky plate. Lorrana stood; her arms hanging at her side as she walked into the front room. Ti-80 rolled after Loranna, the dirty plate in hand.
Loranna sat in her Sim chair and pulled on the immersion goggles. Ti-80 bumped into her.
“Go do something useful little guy,” she said. Already the red light flickered on the chair’s arm. The virtual world was loading. The little robot went back to the kitchen.
Ti-80 put the plates down extending the dish cleaner. The robot studied the laser as it wiped the plate clean. Then the robot looked at the door-that-must not be-opened again.
<Useful> the robot muttered < Real Waffles>
Ti-80 rolled to the door-which-must-never-be-opened.
<Real Waffles, Out There> the little robot reached out one three fingered manipulator. The door handle was hot. No. Radiation. Like the food warmer.
The little robot turned the handle of the door-that-must-never-be-opened.
<Real Waffles> Ti-80 said as the sirens blared.
<Real Waffles> Ti-80 said as the door slammed.
<Real Waffles> Ti-80 said.
The robot rolled up a metal ramp. Ti-80 gripped the blue lever to open the metal doors keeping the robot inside. The handle held radiation, more than the door-that-must-never- be-opened’s handle had. The robot’s fingers tightened around the lever.
<Real Waffles>
The doors opened with the grinding of gears and the scream of metal.
Ti-80 rolled into the sunlight. Blackened wood formed a square around the charcoaled outside of the metal doors. Ti-80 rolled forward hesitantly. The ground crunched Beneath the little robot’s treads.
<real waffles> Ti-80 beeped quietly. The wind blew past in an empty obsidian landscape. Ti-80 rolled backwards. The robot turned as the doors screeched closed.
<…real…waffles…out…there…> the robot blinked with each word.
Ti-80 turned to the blackened landscape and rolled slowly forward. The robot’s little caterpillar treads slipped slightly on the carbonized ground.
<the..dump>
Ti-80’s wheels went from white to brown to black as they wore into the dark powder. The robot rolled carefully across the wreckage. When Ti-80 got to the point where the black carbon became flat glass the radiation was too hot. Ti-80 rolled around it, trying not to over-heat, radiate, not cook like the food heater.
The robot’s logic began to frits. It…was not…good.
<Useful>the robot mumbled.
Debris scattered across the dark plain thudded under the little robot’s advance.
<Dum[p>
Ti-80 rolled until the ground was no longer black.
<Real /Waffles>
Ti-80 rolled until empty trees stood silent. Leaves hung brown on the branches, the ground brown and bare of all but the dirt.
Ti-80 rolled past the dead forest until the robot ran into a fence. The robot’s pixel eyes blinked. Ti-80 scanned a sign hanging on the cold metal, faintly radiating.
Ti-80 felt hot, cooking, warming.
The sign read Alastor City Dump. The robot blinked slowly; Then again, faster.
<Dum]p>the robot croaked out.
Ti-80 rolled forward three fingered manipulator gripping the chain links.
</Waffle…M}aker> Ti-80 could see piles of the discarded beyond the fence. Ti-80 scanned through the fence. Ti-80 paused.
The little arm stopped scanning. Ti-80 looked at the scanner, the dish cleaner, the laser. Ti-80 looked at the fence. Ti-80 remembered the disintegrating food on the plate.
</Waffles> the little robot said.
Ti-80 held the little laser arm out toward the fence. The robot turned on the dish cleaner. The rust disintegrated but a bright layer of metal still lay between the robot and the dump. The robot tried again, but the silver metal only flickered.
<Re*al /Waffles>
Ti-80 felt hot. Radiation seeped through to the robot’s circuits. Electricity sparked quietly as the little robot thought. Hot. The robot blinked twice.
Ti-80 turned up the intensity of the laser, made it hotter.
The dish cleaner softened the metal. Ti-80 blinked then turned the heat up as far as it would go.
The little arm sparked and snapped as the links in the fence melted.
Something burst in the little robot’s arm as the chunk of fence fell. The laser arm fell limp to the robot’s side. Ti-80 tried to move it. It did not respond. The robot blinked slowly.
Ti-80 rolled over the fence as it cooled. The heat of the metal hardly registered to Ti-80’s base sensors.
Ti-80 rolled through the dump looking for the shape in the book.
</Waffle M/aker}>
Ti-80 brought up the image from damaged memory banks. The robot tried to use the scanner. The arm hung limp by the robot’s side.
Ti-80 rolled across the dump trying to match the image to something lying there on each of the piles. Metal and plastic lay among water damaged remnants of paper items.
</Waffl*e M}aker> the little robot murmured.
With the remaining manipulator arm Ti-80 picked up square items and round ones searching for the waffle maker image. The shapes began to be harder to check as yellow twilight stole the shadows or lengthened them to monstrous proportions.
The robot blinked quickly noticing something. It was square with a clip to keep it closed.
</Waffles> The robot said. The sun went down. The robot’s movements slowed as it became dark.
<?Waffle M{aker> the robot inquired of the moon. The pale circle did not reply as Loranna would. It only flew slowly and silently across the sky.
Loranna would need breakfast when the light came back on.
The robot ‘s mind slowed. Ti-80 felt so hot. Circuits sparked and heated as the robot cooked in the radiation filled land. The moon began to sink. The sky began to turn red.
Ti-80 reached out gripping the handle of the square object as light filtered over the horizon. It fell open revealing the pattern the robot had been searching for.
<ReAl /WafFles> the robot creaked. Ti-80 pulled the waffle maker close.
<REaL W/aFfLes> Ti-80’s pixel eyes closed as the sun rose on the pile of debris.
The wind whistled beyond the desolation. And Ti-80 beeped with the square device held close.
<Waf:fle M{ker>
In the desolate town the wind whistled. The wind was the only sound as it sang through the dump, the broken fence, to the dead forest, and the obsidian desolation beyond.
In the kitchen Loranna knelt by the open fridge, tears running down her face. With one arm she wiped at her eyes with the sweater wool. With the other, she held a bowl of batter close to her chest. It smelled like Grandma’s buttermilk waffles.
“Stupid robot,” she choked, “We could have made pancakes.”
Blog
