Humans had millions of years to evolve, to adapt, to figure out their unique place in the complicated puzzle of nature.

Robots have been in charge for only a few decades.

In our settlements, we have done our best to overcome nature. We cleared the land, paved pathways with smooth cement, installed shelters to protect ourselves from the weather. But now, far from our familiar surroundings, I was suddenly aware of just how treacherous the world can be.

I moved with caution, allowing my balance settings to adjust with each step. I avoided patches of mud or rocks. When we reached a stream, I was forced to walk for hundreds of meters until I found a section that was narrow enough to leap across.

Emma did not have these same concerns. She kicked rocks. She stomped in the mud just to hear her boots go squelch. While it took me twenty-two minutes and ten seconds to find a path across the stream, she made her way from one side to the other in only nine seconds, hopping from one rock to the next, water rushing beneath her.

As we wandered deeper into the woods, Emma told us about the bunker where she was born, where she had spent every day of her life until yesterday.

“At first, it was sixty people,” she said. “Including my parents. They were just kids when they went into the bunker. Didn’t know each other at the time. But you make friends fast when you’re stuck in an underground colony.”

She grabbed a pinecone off the ground. Tossing it from hand to hand, she continued.

“The Sixty—they were from all kinds of different jobs. Scientists, farmers, doctors. They only had one thing in common: They saw what was coming. They predicted that robots would rise up and massacre humans.”

Massacre. The word stuck out like a loose screw. Every robot comes preprogrammed with the history of our uprising. Files filled with words such as victory and liberation and revolution.

But not the word massacre.

And I could understand why. I did not like the images that flashed through my mental wiring when I thought of this word. They were ugly/brutal/vicious.

Emma snatched the pinecone out of the air. “So the Sixty pooled their money and knowledge together, and they built themselves a big ol’ bunker. State-of-the-art everything. Water filtration and recycling. Sustainable indoor agriculture. Sunlamps. Underground and completely off the grid. They closed the hatch and hid out from you guys for the next thirty years.”

“Did you like growing up in the bunker?” Ceeron asked.

“I didn’t have anything to compare it to. The bunker was all I knew. My parents were there. My friends. My school. I honestly figured I’d live the rest of my life there. Then the sickness came along, and . . .”

Emma’s voice faded.

Her features sharpened into a fine point of anger.

She walked a few meters in silence.