Making Friends

"Again, Jonathan. Make me a cup of coffee. I would like one sugar and two cream."

A pair of mechanical arms stemming from a cylindrical metal torso immediately began pressing buttons on the latte maker placed in front of it. Within thirty seconds the maker was dispensing black coffee into a novelty cat mug that sat below the nozzle. The robotic arms took the cup of black coffee and mixed into it two sugar cubes and two packets of powdered creamer. It placed the mugged mixture before an elderly man who had been observing the whole process through a pair of safety goggles.

"No, Jonathan. You've messed it up again. I said one sugar, two creamers. You've given me two of each, again." The old man took the fresh cup of coffee and dumped it into a large metal sink that sat on the opposite side of the room. He sat down on an old backless stool that lived before a messy desk and began deleting and re-writing code on an old and yellowed computer. On the other side of the room was the machine which had just made the incorrect cup of coffee. It was in the rough proportions of a human being, however the pieces used to construct it were imperfect, making it a rough and mismatched conglomerate of metal. There was no bottom half, instead it sat upright on it's torso. This torso itself was a cylindrical metal piece, flat on the bottom so that it could sit in this way, and the backside was opened to reveal a mess of wires and small screens that displayed fast-moving and foreign information. The arms were two tubes which could lengthen and shorten as necessary and at the ends of these were delicately constructed hands, each with five fingers apiece that moved as precisely as man's own. Atop the torso sat a smaller metal cylinder that fashioned the head. On this was painted a crude smiling face, and a red lightbulb sat at the apex of the cranium. As far as the man knew, these were the last two beings that remained in the city of Chicago.

It had been probably about 3 years since nuclear bombs were detonated across the world, but days were difficult to track with little sun and heavy restriction to outdoor access. Irving Knapp was always considered by his community to be an eccentric individual, but years of careful planning and stockpiling had come to be his saving grace when the Windy City became a dystopia. He had fitted his basement to be radiation-proof, and in it he held many years worth of dried and shelf-stable foods. Water purification tablets, soap, medical supplies, countless books and puzzles for entertainment, even a generator. With these tools he had passed the first six months after the bombs had fallen entirely underground. For a short time after it all started there were regular communications on the National Emergency Radio Broadcast, but these slowly waned before stopping entirely after a few months time.

His first venture into the world outside was blindingly bright and harsh to his unadjusted eyes, yet still he could not see the sun. The sky was grey and covered in dark clouds while winds whipped the battered surface of the earth which was coated in an even layer of debris that was once the neighborhood he resided within. There was no sign of anything, living or dead, and he wandered the remnants of streets he once knew for hours in search of anything or anyone. With no such luck he returned to his bunker and thought the whole night long. It was loneliness more so than curiosity that was the driving factor in bringing him to the surface that day, and he had found no friend nor even soul to speak of. With no friend to be made, he resolved that all he could do now was make himself a friend. With this venture in mind he set out the next day to gather supplies from the rubble that was abundant around him.

The metal pieces came quickly enough, there being no shortage of them lying around. It was the technology that came more slowly, in smaller batches and over longer time. Irving was an intelligent individual in the before-times of the normal world. He had proudly hung his degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University as the centerpiece in his office, and in his free time he had tinkered with small-scale robotics and computing. He knew that the undertaking before him was no small feat, but in this new world there was nothing but time and energy to be spent. Over a year and a half the pieces came together and Irving assembled them into the shape of the mechanical man who now sat in his room. With scavenged art supplies he gave it a face as well as a name, and with an old desktop computer that he had scrounged together he began coding the life-force that would give his companion consciousness.

"Okay Jonathan, we're gonna try again with these new tweaks. Please make me a cup of coffee with one sugar and two creamers."

The metallic arms once again moved in a fury to work the coffee machine before them. They took the mug of freshly brewed black coffee and placed into it one sugar cube and two packets of powdered creamer. The mixture was stirred and sat before the man who had ordered it, who was smiling with fulfillment.

"Thank you, Jonathan." He took the mug and drank from it. The coffee he had now was always terrible, typically spoiled, but the cup he now sipped tasted better than any latte he had ever had, even in the before-times. This cup tasted like success. He sat back at his desk and excitedly began writing new code for the machine. In this way he continued until his mug was empty and dried and the oil in his lamplight burned lower and eventually out. With this marker of time he laid his head upon his yellowed pillow and pulled a shabby comforter up to his neck.

"Goodnight, Jonathan. We've got another day of work ahead of us tomorrow."

He awoke suddenly, after an indeterminate amount of time, at the sound of the metal door being jostled at the entrance of his bunker. It was pitch black inside and there naught to be seen. Irving reached slowly beside him for a bedside table and grasped blankly twice in the dark before feeling it's old wooden exterior. Fumbling around the outside, he pulled open a small drawer located on the front and searched within, stopping when his fingers touched the cool metal barrel of a Colt revolver and took it up in one swift move. All while this is happening he can hear the sound of the intruder getting closer, but still none can be seen in the darkness. Irving pulls his legs close to his body and holds the revolver ready, aiming it in front of him blindly into the darkness. His hands shake with anticipation and he breathes so lightly that it hardly does any good and suddenly a foreign hand is strongly, yet awkwardly, gripping both the gun and his hand with one hold near the cylinder and Irving hears in a deep voice -

"Oh shit."

Irving fires immediately and in the split second of light he can see the outline of a man standing beside his bed, one of his hands outstretched towards him and the other to his side holding an object that couldn't quite be made out. Irving swung so that he was squarely facing the intruder and fired again three times, each blast filling the small room with light and smoke. He stopped after the third shot and sat, deafened and motionless, waiting for another attack that did not come. He ran his hands over his body and found they came back wet after he had touched his arms, yet he did not feel any pain. He called out into the darkness -

"You done yet?"

There was no answer. Irving rose from his bed and groped blindly in the dark for an oil lamp before finding and lighting one, placing it onto his cluttered desk. In the dim light he could see a body lying still in a pool of blood that slowly grew on his floor. The assailant was a dirty, disheveled young man, maybe 25, and he was shot twice through the midsection. Beside him lay the bloody, unfolded Buck knife that was used in the attack. Irving looked down at his arms and saw they were each slashed deeply across, and he sighed before setting to work cleaning his wounds while a dull pain had started to radiate through them. After a time he had bandaged his arms and dragged the young man's body outside, a good ways away from his abode, and faced his feet to the west. Walking back in to his lair, Irving looked across to his creation and saw that a bullet had struck it in its midsection as well. He looked inside and it appeared that no critical infrastructure was damaged. The machine powered on normally as it always had before.

"Jonathan, please make me a cup of coffee. I'd like one sugar and two cream, if you could."

The machine set out on this task as it had done time and time before, though moved a touch slower than it once did. Once a standard cup of black coffee had been poured, it took the cup and added two creamer packets and two cubes of sugar before placing it in front of it's creator. Irving sighed, took the coffee, and sat down at his computer to rewrite code.