\n <\/p>\n
After the Cataclysm, the humans brought in robots to clear the rubble. It was why the robots had been constructed. They were sturdy enough to withstand any further tremors and falling debris, and they were strong enough to lift the shattered pieces of buildings.<\/p>\n
Twobit worked tirelessly, like their fellow robots. Solar panels kept them energized, and the engineers had developed circulatory systems to keep their joints lubricated by filtering elements from the air and remixing them, the peak of intelligent design.<\/p>\n
If the element mix was sometimes off, it rarely caused problems that were unsolvable.<\/p>\n
Twobit\u2019s present task was within the remnants of an older building, one with a marble fa\u00e7ade that had weakened in the years before the Cataclysm, as the changing climate had impacted air, earth and sea. The faults that had developed in the marble had caused it to cascade off the ruined structure like an avalanche, dusted with what could almost be mistaken for a fresh, powdery snow.<\/p>\n
Not that anyone living remembered what snow looked like. Twobit only had old recordings of what snow was, and they observed that this marble dust was not cold enough to be snow.<\/p>\n
But those recordings also showed them what this building once looked like and how important it had been to humans.<\/p>\n
And that gave them an idea.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s that unit doing?\u201d Jinj asked, studying Twobit on the feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cStacking rubble,\u201d Chang replied.<\/p>\n
Read more science fiction from Nature Futures<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I can see that, but aren\u2019t they supposed to be stacking it in Sector 1?\u201d<\/p>\n
Chang hmmph-ed. \u201cRight, I\u2019ll send a reminder protocol.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like \u2014\u201d Jinj began. \u201c\u2014 nah, why would a robot be trying to rebuild? That\u2019s not what this crew is programmed for.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think it\u2019s got a bad mix?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe air there has heavier-than-standard percentages of calcium and carbon, but last I heard, we don\u2019t have enough data to know what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chang drummed her fingers on the desk, gaze unfocused as she thought. \u201cSend the data to Mohini up in environmental. She has a theory about which elements are causing the units to go off their protocols. I\u2019ll send the reminder to the unit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCopy. Wish we knew what\u2019s going on in these units\u2019 processors, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFigure that out, and you can probably get reassigned from surveillance detail.\u201d Chang grinned. \u201cGet moved up to the lab with the engineers who\u2019re tearing their hair out about causation and correlation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jinj chuckled. \u201cLivin\u2019 the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Twobit received the reminder protocol. \u201cMove debris to Sector 1.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sector 1 was not where this building had stood, but perhaps it was near enough. And there were already materials available in that location.<\/p>\n
They sent back an acknowledgement and got to work.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Mohini stared at the data. Calcium and carbon levels were 10% higher than they should have been in and around Sector 1. It was one of many reasons that humans descended from those who had survived the Cataclysm were still sequestered in subterranean bunkers, watching and controlling the robots.<\/p>\n
Except, at the moment, they weren\u2019t controlling the robots.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe records say that\u2019s the old state building,\u201d Jinj said. She hadn\u2019t figured out what was going through the robots\u2019 minds, but Mohini had requested her to come up to the environmental lab to brainstorm.<\/p>\n
Mohini nodded. \u201cWhy that building, though?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was one of the bigger buildings.\u201d Jinj scanned the text on her tablet, picking out some of the notes that grabbed her attention. \u201cImpressive edifice, seat of government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut not currently usable, and \u2014\u201d Mohini trailed off. \u201cI don\u2019t think it looked like what they\u2019re building.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entire crew around Sector 1 was working on this new building, roughly 200 metres west of its former location. They\u2019d brought in lumber from other structures and were using it to contain smaller pieces of rubble on each course, with the lumber on alternating sides of the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a layer cake, but criss-crossed,\u201d Jinj said.<\/p>\n
\u201cKath-kuni,\u201d Mohini said. \u201cM\u0101t\u0101mah\u012b \u2014 my grandmother \u2014 called it \u2018safe as houses\u2019, but it really means wooden corners. They were everywhere in the town she lived in. The wood moves just enough when there\u2019s an earthquake to keep everything standing, and the stone helps keep it warm and dry inside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the Cataclysm, the humans brought in robots to clear the rubble. It was why the robots had been constructed. They were sturdy enough to withstand any further tremors and falling debris, and they were strong enough to lift the shattered pieces of buildings. Twobit worked tirelessly, like their fellow robots. Solar panels kept them<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[3701,629],"class_list":{"0":"post-39697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-houses","9":"tag-safe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}