The old equipment of the surviving body does not come in handy after the update. In just a few hours, the robots are ready with the new body and program features, the new generation of robots, the eighteenth generation of robots. They can do everything imaginable. They have laser wheels on their legs. One can go from one place to another in an instant. They do not have to pay the electricity charge separately. As soon as they catch water or any liquid, they start to get charged automatically. And with a few minutes charge, they can do all the work for weeks in a row. And they don’t have as many wires in their body as the old ones. There are vacuum fibers instead of wires. Faster than wires. Wire-based robots are fell into problems easily. After one or two weeks, the old-fashioned robots’ wires are torn apart, and new wiring has to be done repeatedly.

The most significant advantages of the new generation of robots are their excellent antivirus system. They give much more security. But there is a downside to being so good. The problem is for those who upgrade from the old robot to the new generation robot. Most of the time, after the upgrade, it is seen that their previous memory is not working.

There is a ninety-eight percent chance that the memory of old robots will not return or almost completely will be deleted, which cannot be backed up. So many old robots have been opposing this up-gradation process for a long time. But the Robo-government did not bother and continued its work. Those tiny leader-type robots, old robots but opposed to the government, suddenly became infected with the virus at night and became paralyzed and useless. It was a ploy of the robot government. However, the movement of the old robots increased so much that the government became a little reluctant. So, the policy got changed.

The authority will not force the old robots for up-gradation. But robots will not get any primary benefits, any essential antivirus updates. As long as the parts operate, they have to work in coal stations and research stations. In return, they will get an electrical charge. If you do not work, you will not be charged. Once charged, they remain active for only two days. So all the old robots are forced to work. The new-gen robots do not have to do those works. They monitor the work. When going to work, a screw or a joint of the robot may get affected, or something goes wrong. But the old robots do not make a sound. Because if they make a sound, the current robot will catch them and take them to the modification center. And will upgrade them in the name of treatment. And if fate is terrible, the authority will delete their memory. And if not upgraded, they will repair new robots with old ones’ body parts. So even if the old robots have a problem, they try to fix it within themselves. For example, if a little bit of it breaks, the robots nearby help. And so the robotic life of the old robots continues month after month, year after year. Without antivirus, without up-gradation. And slowly, the parts are becoming useless for many. Now there are about one and a half hundred left.

Her home is about thirteen kilos from the coal station where Shina works. She lives alone in the house. She used to have three more fifth-generation robots as her family members. Two of them went to the modification center and never came back. And number three died of a virus attack last month. Working, as usual, she checked the retina pass at the station gate and got on the main road. Similar robots like Shina have two options to move, either on foot or on the wheel attached to the ankle. Shina’s right foot wheel is broken. So she leans a little on the wheel of her left foot and walks a little. When the wheel gets hot, she strolls on both legs. After a while, she leans on the wheel of her left foot again. Even today, she was walking in the same way. Her body charge was half over. That means she will have to take charge tomorrow.

Another problem is if any robot falls on the road when the charge is exhausted while walking on the road, the municipal robot will come and take them directly to the modification center. The poor thing can’t open their eyes and remember who they were. Because of this fear, everyone, like Shina, drives less on wheels so that the charge remains stable. Even if it is difficult and it takes time, she walks. So Shina seeing her charge indicator turned off the wheel and started strolling.

At that time, she saw something lying on the side of the road. Shina got closer and saw a robot lying on the ground, utterly new to this generation. She thought of getting out of there but went to him again. Shina put her hand gently on the robot’s head and tried to scan the memory. But she couldn’t, not even being able to. Shina can’t scan the information of the new generation of robots in this way. That’s normal. She looked closer and carefully noticed the robot lying on the ground. The joint on one side of his leg was open. It had no sense. Maybe it got hit with something in the road.

Shina looks back and forth. Then her eyes went to the front side, and there was something like a thin drain. Something was glistening like water. She leaned over slowly, finding nothing around her, so she peeled off a square steel sheet from her back. This sheet would open a few days later as she lost the screw. She bent the sheet a little with her hand, much like a cup. Then she returned a little water from the drain. Very carefully, Shina took the robot’s right hand in her own, then dipped it into the cup of water. New generation robots have charging sensors. After keeping it for about five minutes, the robot suddenly started moving, looked back and forth, and then slowly sat up. He looked at Shina for a while.

“Hello, are you all right now? Can you hear me? What happened? What’s your name?”

“Ah … I’m Jim,” replied the robot.

“Well, what happened? … hey hey”, Jim laid down on the ground again before Shina could ask the whole question, his eye display closed.
‘Strange trouble,’ Shina thought to herself. She doesn’t even want to leave Jim alone here. So Shina picked her up with great difficulty, grabbed him with both hands, and started the wheel of one of her legs; and all the way, Shina took Jim on her lap and drove the wheel on one leg and reached her house after a long time. She gently laid Jim down where she used to rest inside the house. Then Shina brought clean water from inside and put it in a jar. She grabbed Jim’s hand and dipped it into the jar. After a while, Jim opened his eyes.

“Hi, thanks. I’m Jim,” he said with a smile.

“I know,” Shina said, “I’m Shina.”

“Oops,” said Jim with a grin. Shina noticed that Jim was trying to grab her left leg with his hand, and his joint got displaced.

“Wait, I’m coming,” said Shina and go to the next room. She kept looking for something that could fit Jim’s leg joint. Nothing was found, at which point Shina remembered that the screw on a wheel on her foot could be the size of Jim’s foot joint. She closed her eyes, pulled the wheel off her feet, and pulled the screw out of the wheel without thinking. Then Shina came back to Jim. What she thought was correct, the screw was the same size. She carefully grabbed the open joint of Jim’s left leg and screwed it on. Jim said nothing and just stared at Shina. And seeing Jim staring at her like that, Shina also left without saying anything. She wondered if the robot could fall in love.

“Your charging done?” Sheena went to the other side of the room and asked Jim.

“Almost done. Five more minutes.”

“Okay, do you have to call someone in your family?” As Shina was saying this, she heard a voice at the gate of her house. The gate was open, and four new-generation robots entered the room in seconds. Jim stood up with his hands out of the water. Looking at the rest of the robots, he said, “Why does it take so long to come? Once I turned on my GPS, couldn’t you track it and come quickly?”

“Sorry Jim, we went to that street but couldn’t find you. Then I saw your location a little while ago, it was showing up here, so We moved here,” said one of the four robots.

“Anyway, let’s move,” Jim said.

Making Shina surprised, Jim and the four left the gate without telling her anything. On the way, a robot addressed Jim and said, “Who is the girl of the early period?”
“Which way did you see the girl? Look at her back. Rusty steel and wires are out, Luckily you arrived on time, or that old aunty would have blown my body stuff away “. Jim left the house laughing as he spoke.

These happened in the blink of an eye. Shina was standing in one place for a long time. She still couldn’t believe what had just happened. After a while, Shina strode towards the gate. The indicator gave the signal to the brain when she was closing the gate. The charge was almost over. Her body charge died when Shina used the wheel to bring Jim home, and Shina hadn’t thought about it for so long. She smiled to herself. She went to the gate again and came out of the home. To her right is the road to Coal Station, and to her left is the ‘Robot Modify Center.’

Shina looked back at her house once, and then she started walking to the left.

Yasir Monon is a novelist, Author of short stories