"And that is the final bolt. Window glass officially set." Construction robot Designation: A074 finished tightening the bolt, wiping imaginary sweat off of its metallic brow as it took a stride back, looking over the now-fixed kitchen wall of the small apartment with a satisfied expression in its gaze… for a robot.
"Good work. Now, we move on-" Construction robot Designation A128 started.
Unfortunately, as A128 started talking, the front door of the notably larger apartment next door opened, and out stepped a white-blonde haired young man with a tiny, blonde baby in his arms. The baby was not quiet. Rather, it was screaming at the top of its lungs, as if the concept of 'quiet' was an insult to its entire existence. Immediately upon leaving the threshold of the house, though, the baby's eyes widened, and it instantly calmed, captivated by the blue sky.
"That's right, little Bell. Walkies. You like walkies… The sun. Look, it's bright… no, don't eat that, it's a shirt. No-no, don't-!" I talked to my infant daughter with a careful, measured tone, as if I was speaking to a live bomb with significant attitude.
Bell responded positively at first. She smiled. She grabbed my shirt with her little hands.
Then, she tried to put the fabric into her mouth.
All of my shirts were reinforced to handle fairly extreme stress.
It tore instantly in the baby's grip, anyway. Part of my collar made its way toward her mouth. I moved my hand to try to stop her.
A loose thread tickled her little nose. Her face scrunched up. "Ahh…ah-"
My eyes went wide. By reflex, I thrust the baby above my head and pointed her face toward the ocean behind me.
"Ahh-fwoofth!" It was a cute little sound.
The energy she released along with it was significantly less cute.
It slammed into my neighbor's apartment. Nearly hit one of the construction robots, who were hard at work fixing the kitchen window, which had been destroyed by a giggle and a pointed finger last week.
The outer wall vanished instantly. The mass of energy didn't stop. It plowed through a bedroom. Then a bathroom. A hallway. Then, it finally plowed through the other outer wall and detonated into the ocean with a loud splash.
The construction robots looked.
They saw half of a bed sheared completely through. Open pipes that'd once fed into a bathtub and toilet that simply weren't there anymore. Four walls with holes big enough to fit a Tater and a half in them.
Their heads whipped over to me. "...Sorry!" I apologized sheepishly.
It didn't help. "...Let's go somewhere else, Bell." I muttered to my daughter, my feet floating off of the ground already, as Bell giggled happily, seemingly oblivious to the destruction she'd just caused.
Robot A072 watched me go with an expression as resigned as an LED face could get. "Well, at least the owners have been staying in a house on the other side of the island for the last six months."
A128 looked at its partner, coping significantly worse, having just wasted a week of effort fixing the last, slightly less-damaged wall. "...Why do we do this?" It asked.
A072 looked at its partner. "Hope. We rebuild out of hope. For a brighter tomorrow."
"..." A128 looked at A072 like he'd just realized that his partner had an extremely defective processing core. "Screw hope." It dropped its drill onto the ground and left without another word.
A072 watched its partner go with a world-weary expression on its robotic face. "...Contacting Construction Bot Dispatch."
The call went through after a few rings. "...Designation?" The other end asked.
"A072."
"Home repair?"
"Correct."
"Request?"
"New dispatch."
"Dispatch limit reached. Reassignment unavailable." The line responded almost automatically.
"...Sigh." A072 said, "Request override."
"Understood… Reason?"
"Assignment refusal. Designation A128. Sigh." A072 told the line.
"Understood. Refusal request is coming in now. Processed. New dispatch requested. Flagged. Authorization override request numbers exceed abnormal parameters." The dispatch told A072.
"...Sigh."
"Overridden. Dispatch request processed. Construction Robot Designation A135 sent."
"...Sigh. Expect new dispatch request in three days." A072 told the dispatch center.
"Flagged. Good luck, A072." A072 hung up, picked up the drill dropped by A128, and got to work without a single complaint.
Soon after, he was joined by another construction bot, a newer model, upbeat and enthusiastic.
A072 knew that wouldn't last.