Usu by Jayde Ver Elst

while Cog continued, seemingly unburdened by reality. “Nows! What I was going to have saids earlier was about your passport, you see.” His eyes squinted ever so slightly. “Your kind―”
    He was interrupted by Rain’s logic circuits actually functioning, in a manner of speaking. “Rain is kind? Of course, Rain is kind! Meanies are boo.”
    Shaking his head, Cog tried again. “No, no, you… you know… the word we's can't have saids but did almost say,” Wheel began screaming from the ground behind them, a small siren prematurely peeking from the tip of his head, “You don't mean hu―”
    “No Noes! Yous don't says it!” Facing Rain again, “F-Fine we says you’re something else, you’re a… can you be a flamingo? We han’t got one of those prissy buggers around. Go on 'en, make a flamingo noise!”
    Challenged by the challenged, Rain searched her centuries of experience, her wealth of knowledge, and her stuffed rabbit cohort that was desperately trying to explain things to her through excessive sweating and arm waving. Somewhere deep, deep down, and then marginally deeper still, she found the answer, the answer to everything, but she sneezed and dropped that bit so she picked up the one next to it instead and confidently onomatopoeiad, “Meow?”
    “It's a cat! It's a cat sir Cog, sir! It's come to eat the pengui―” Was as far as the hysterical Wheel got before being interrupted by a minor stab-induced electrical seizure. “Yes, you's no flamingo, definitely a cat. We's usually only let the birdses in but, I don’t think poor Wheel can take many more stabs today. So against me better juryment, you’re cleared Miss Cat! Just… don’t eat all the birds now and do watch out for the primates, you never know when one could sneak by here when I’m not looking!” Cog said in a hushed voice, perhaps to keep his partner from undue distress, or perhaps just for dramatic purposes; no one cared enough to write another poorly comma’d sentence about it. Though, one could suppose the door cared, and probably would have commented too, if a rather disgruntled penguin had not ripped out any speaker related devices the night before in a perfectly calm rage-fueled moment of destructive euphoria. Instead, the door could do little to resist, even verbally. The once prized people appraiser that saw JC Penny reach new heights of personal degradation now silently opened its way for a little girl, her stuffed rabbit, and a fishing pole who soon blurred into the cityscape before them.
     
    This particular chronicle, Old Francisco, was considered a marvel even among robots specifically engineered to be obsessively cynical in an attempt at solving the mass critic-shortage that sneaked up on the 22nd century. 'Sneaked' being your narrator's euphemism for the part where they were all killed. Book critics were first, you remember that now.
    Still, inappropriate revelations about career tracks ignored, the city was indeed a sight to behold. None of that flying car nonsense you’ve mucked about with in your head. For all the wire, degrading neon tubes, and fiber the city felt motionless, a silence made eerie by visuals that did little to justify it. The fully spherical structure had strut upon strut of transparent solar paneling inside, a sight marred only by the bare connecting wires sapping life from each one. At its base, the sphere barely pierced what was now a truly dead sea, cycling water from it to cool itself.
    Rain and Usu stood on a thick glass walkway, caught between each extreme and a very friendly looking sign that insisted they both 'Sod off'. Then, just as Rain found herself mumbling the words aloud, the silence broke. Awakening from its daily slumber, the chronicle sprung to life and the exceptionally friendly sign swiveled around to be replaced with a far shinier one bearing a far gentler (if generic) banner, 'Welcome'. Robotic birds began to sing from suspended power cables while robotic hillbillies began