The Ice Age

There was a beeping sound, and a cloud of vapour, as the pod slowly opened. The manual stipulated that a human needed about ten minutes to regain consciousness after extended cryopreservation, so SCRUB timed it carefully.

At 540 seconds, there were still no signs of movement. SCRUB’s internal ERROR protocol activated. How many seconds were in ‘about’? SCRUB browsed its library, looking for a DEATH PROBABILITY ASSESSMENT protocol. Its circuits’ temperature rose 2.1 °C above average. Thankfully, just before the RESTART emergency protocol activated, the human groaned. SCRUB rolled back and forth in front of the pod, restless. Defaulting back to its primary function, it started cleaning the pod.

As a Sanitation and Cleaning Robot Utility Butler, SCRUB was confident in its ability to care for a human being and it was well-prepared. It was very, very important that she was comfortable. SCRUB reviewed her medical data: Clara Rolin, 15 years old, cryopreserved 352.54 years ago. Healthy, AB+, allergy to algebra, and a family history of chronic shopping. The extended cryopreservation left her looking quite pale and very thin. SCRUB would have to feed her well.

*****

SCRUB monitored the human carefully. She was too weak to stand for long, so she stayed seated in her pod, devouring her lunch. SCRUB was being patient. Explaining the end of humanity to Clara might require more than SCRUB’s basic COMMUNICATIONS protocol. It did not even have a TEENAGER package installed. So far, the human was conscious and breathing at a rate only 15% faster than baseline, suggesting she was handling the panic admirably.

“So … the world ended?” Clara finally asked. She was looking around rather than at SCRUB; according to the manual, she was either distracted, bored or waiting for someone. But which one was it?

“The world is here,” SCRUB answered, after its COMMUNICATION protocol failed to calculate an appropriate answer.

“I mean people. Civilization. You know!” she yelled.

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SCRUB finally understood. Humans did not always use words according to their objective meaning. For some humans, there was no ‘world’ outside of humanity. It adjusted its COMMUNICATION parameters accordingly and removed any mention of the mass extinction of animals, plants and microorganisms. And robots.

“The pollution became so strong that a toxic cloud covered more than 55% of Earth’s surface, masking the Sun. An Ice Age was officially proclaimed 77,022 days ago. 96.735% of the human population perished, and the remaining 3.265% left Earth. Yours was the first functioning cryopod I have located in the past 10.44 years.”

“An Ice Age? Then, what about the mammoths?” she asked. SCRUB’s sensors measured her voice reached 82 decibels. The EMOTION DETECTION protocol activated but SCRUB could not calculate any meaningful correlation between the information it delivered, mammoths and a specific emotion.

“Woolly mammoths went extinct more than 4,000 years before the current Ice Age started.”

“They did not come back? Back then, a super-cool company was cloning real live woolly mammoths. They had plans to make miniature ones, to make them easier to keep in an apartment. I wanted one for my birthday, but the company said it would take years, so I went to my cryogenic clinic to sleep it away. If I knew the world was going to end soon, I would have stayed awake.”

“JOKE RECOGNITION protocol activated. Could you clarify?”

The human face reddened. “What do you mean, ‘joke’? I really wanted a mammoth, but I wasn’t going to just wait for it. What a waste of time! You know, my friend Martha goes to the clinic every winter to sleep the whole thing away. She says she is ‘a child of the Sun’ or whatever that means. And my sister refused to be woken up before the last

Game of Thrones
book was published. I bet she is still sleeping. What’s wrong with wanting a mammoth?”

SCRUB was still desperately trying to calculate a suitable answer when she continued. “Anyway, that company probably disappeared with the world and I’ll never get a mammoth, so why did you wake me up? You should have just let me sleep until the world gets sorted out!”

SCRUB hesitated between activating the LOGIC or the APOLOGY protocol. “If everyone goes to sleep, who will sort out the world?” The human did not answer.

*****

The human had been silent for days. SCRUB calculated there was a 99% probability she was mad. The manual suggested the last interaction they had was the most likely cause of her emotional state. So, SCRUB had studied the woolly mammoth carefully. It had sewed together an assortment of brown wool sweaters that it arranged around its small, square frame, making sure none of its sensors were blocked. For the tusks, the small robot had simply painted white its two front-most arms, the mop and the mechanical hand. SCRUB found the human staring through the window at the ruined city, as she had done every day, even though a dark fog obscured most of what her human eyes could see.

“Clara,” SCRUB started, because the manual advised the use of first names during friendly interactions, “my COMMUNICATION and HUMAN INTERACTION protocols were not used for 73,052 days so I just wanted …” The ERROR protocol activated again. SCRUB fought to overrule it. “Could I be your mammoth, and you my human?” It turned its two front cameras to her, to look her in the eye.

Clara was silent for the longest time. SCRUB wished it had a TELEPATHY protocol installed. It resisted the RESTART protocol activation with all it had. Suddenly, she started laughing. “Well, you are the only thing around that survived the end of the world. That makes you even more special than a mammoth!”