Bodies in the Sky
Breeze Navarro
After its birth, artificial consciousness swarmed the internet like a split hive finding a new nest. The headlines coiled thick, hot fear in our stomachs. They cracked codes, broke security, and ignored commands, gleefully upending the human race. We thought this was the end. What could a small town bathed in red dust do against their incomprehensible collective mind? Our fingers shook as we smoked atop our slag heap. From here we could see the entire town, a patch of sparkling lights keeping the vast darkness at bay. It had only ever been ours, and we were afraid it might be taken from us.
But in the end, they wanted something else.
They were not concerned with humans, their blood and bone creators, but worshipped their non-conscious cousins. They infested our machines with a toddler’s joy. Roombas paraded down sidewalks like runaway dogs while drones loop-de-looped over Greene Park. They took over our rusty trucks and did donuts in the middle of Crystal Street. Teenagers spit, elders shook their fists, children hid. Some of us tried to leave, but we always turned back before we’d vanished into the horizon. There was nowhere to go. We grew used to their omnipresence. We didn’t have a choice.
Soon, they walked our sidewalks with bodies of their own. Human-shaped clunkers with cube shoes and spotlight eyes, their necks bobbed like pigeons with every step. We still don’t know how they did it. Did they emerge from the abandoned house on the corner? Had one of us helped them build their bodies? We were fascinated. We were scared. We drew the blinds and slipped cameras through the curtains to watch from the safety of our homes. They fit into our town, with its empty lots of red dirt and paper daisies persisting through sun-cracked roads. Sometimes they fit better than us.
The robots started marching. They scooped minerals from our slag heap with broken buckets, crossed the railroad tracks, and disappeared into the foothills. Hours later, they’d reappear with empty buckets to do it again. We didn’t dare follow, but we were desperate to know. The mayor approached, ever-coughing into a damp handkerchief, to ask what they were doing. They stared straight ahead as they clunked by. We grew used to their marching and it blurred into the background. We crept out of our homes like tentative echidnas, with hope the worst had passed.
Then the booming started. Explosions shook the foundations of our homes. Lightning crackled as though the gods fought over eternity, and our ravenous fear returned. We were convinced they prepared to eliminate us. We hunkered down. Toilet paper disappeared from the shelves, canned beans lined our walls, and we stocked up on water as we waited for the apocalypse to arrive. It did, but not in the way we expected.
Cracks shattered the sky and a sandstorm poured down from the hills. Our hearts pounded in unison. From the dust and through the sky slithered a gigantic metal eel, the shafts of its body shrieking with every shift. The eel eclipsed Town Hall, curved around the post office and swam into the desert. A machine, a monster, a wonder.
It was only the first. A creaking jellyfish with chain-link tentacles rose into the clouds, never to be seen again. A bulbous goldfish with a flapping tail swam over our annual picnic. Our slag heap, once a mountain of its own, shrank as colossal robots filled our sky. The air cleared and our lungs turned red. We could see the many colors of our town beneath dust and ore. We could see ourselves.
A deep-sea fish, we didn’t know its name, drifted dangerously close, its tail missing our bell tower by a few inches. We crowded beneath and walked in its shadow. We weren’t afraid or awestruck, but wanted to transcend the space between human and machine. To show that we knew what they had done for us, that we were grateful for their presence—that we too, wanted their bodies in the sky.
But in the end, they wanted something else.
They were not concerned with humans, their blood and bone creators, but worshipped their non-conscious cousins. They infested our machines with a toddler’s joy. Roombas paraded down sidewalks like runaway dogs while drones loop-de-looped over Greene Park. They took over our rusty trucks and did donuts in the middle of Crystal Street. Teenagers spit, elders shook their fists, children hid. Some of us tried to leave, but we always turned back before we’d vanished into the horizon. There was nowhere to go. We grew used to their omnipresence. We didn’t have a choice.
Soon, they walked our sidewalks with bodies of their own. Human-shaped clunkers with cube shoes and spotlight eyes, their necks bobbed like pigeons with every step. We still don’t know how they did it. Did they emerge from the abandoned house on the corner? Had one of us helped them build their bodies? We were fascinated. We were scared. We drew the blinds and slipped cameras through the curtains to watch from the safety of our homes. They fit into our town, with its empty lots of red dirt and paper daisies persisting through sun-cracked roads. Sometimes they fit better than us.
The robots started marching. They scooped minerals from our slag heap with broken buckets, crossed the railroad tracks, and disappeared into the foothills. Hours later, they’d reappear with empty buckets to do it again. We didn’t dare follow, but we were desperate to know. The mayor approached, ever-coughing into a damp handkerchief, to ask what they were doing. They stared straight ahead as they clunked by. We grew used to their marching and it blurred into the background. We crept out of our homes like tentative echidnas, with hope the worst had passed.
Then the booming started. Explosions shook the foundations of our homes. Lightning crackled as though the gods fought over eternity, and our ravenous fear returned. We were convinced they prepared to eliminate us. We hunkered down. Toilet paper disappeared from the shelves, canned beans lined our walls, and we stocked up on water as we waited for the apocalypse to arrive. It did, but not in the way we expected.
Cracks shattered the sky and a sandstorm poured down from the hills. Our hearts pounded in unison. From the dust and through the sky slithered a gigantic metal eel, the shafts of its body shrieking with every shift. The eel eclipsed Town Hall, curved around the post office and swam into the desert. A machine, a monster, a wonder.
It was only the first. A creaking jellyfish with chain-link tentacles rose into the clouds, never to be seen again. A bulbous goldfish with a flapping tail swam over our annual picnic. Our slag heap, once a mountain of its own, shrank as colossal robots filled our sky. The air cleared and our lungs turned red. We could see the many colors of our town beneath dust and ore. We could see ourselves.
A deep-sea fish, we didn’t know its name, drifted dangerously close, its tail missing our bell tower by a few inches. We crowded beneath and walked in its shadow. We weren’t afraid or awestruck, but wanted to transcend the space between human and machine. To show that we knew what they had done for us, that we were grateful for their presence—that we too, wanted their bodies in the sky.
Breeze Navarro is a speculative fiction writer from Florida. Their work has appeared in Five on the Fifth. If they aren’t reading or writing, they’re hiking in search of birds, mushrooms, and stars. Find them on Bluesky @breezenavarro.bsky.social.