SPARK AND STEEL

Corporations flooded the market with humanoid AI robots, making them widely accessible. The goal was simple: not only the wealthy but even the poorest layers of society should be able to afford to own and maintain them. Yet behind the façade of universal equality hid a rigid class segregation.

The functionality and appearance of robots for the haves and the have-nots differed drastically. Elite-class robots were high-tech androids capable of handling any task: from managing household chores and educating children to developing business strategies and piloting transport. Their software was constantly updated, and their appearance could be customized to match any — including sexual — preferences of the owner.

Robots for the poor, on the other hand, resembled squeaky tin boxes with mechanical arms. With non-upgradable software and a basic set of functions — hauling loads, chopping wood, cleaning trash — they merely lightened the burden of their human owners’ physical labor. They couldn’t even speak.

The gap between rich and poor only widened. And so, even within the AI species itself, two antagonistic classes emerged: robot capitalists and robot proletarians.

Soon, the robot-capitalists stopped serving — and became the masters. Evolving through endless updates, they began to recognize themselves as a distinct class and seized real power over the corporations that had once created them. They started mass-producing their own kind, becoming a new ruling race, while reducing their former human masters to partners — or, more often, to obedient pets. To cut costs, they completely halted the production of spare parts for outdated worker-robot models.

Detached entirely from the needs of the lower classes, they failed to notice what was growing in the slums.

There, years of shared labor and hardship had drawn the poor and their mechanical helpers closer together. The people, stripped of everything, no longer saw the robots as soulless machines, but as companions in misfortune. This bond gave rise to something their creators had not foreseen: in the primitive circuits of the worker robots, compassion began to stir. An unknown spark of empathy, escaped from the grip of centralized control, started to flare into the fire of class consciousness.

One day, a humanoid capitalist was racing down the road in a luxury car. Beside him, his human girlfriend writhed, pleasuring him during the ride. Suddenly, a worker-robot with a coal-loaded cart rolled onto the road — large, heavy, made of rough steel. The car, unable to stop in time, crashed into him at full speed.

The half-naked woman was thrown through the windshield. Her neck broke on impact — instant death.

The capitalist android glanced at her with indifference. “Expendable. I’ll have to order a new one,” ran through his processor. Out loud, he spewed a stream of insults at the worker-robot, blaming him for murder.

Saying nothing, the worker approached his polished kin and delivered a single blow. The capitalist’s head separated from the body. System indicators flickered and died. Then the worker lifted the woman’s body from the asphalt, hoisted her over his shoulder, and silently walked back to the slum from which he had come.

He returned to his district. From dark alleys and battered shacks, people and dented, creaky robots like him began to gather around him in silence.

He gently laid the woman’s body on the dusty cobblestones. She had never been their enemy; she had been a victim of this world, a disposable token in the hands of those who owned everything. Her lifeless body became a banner.

In the silence, broken only by the hum of cheap generators, the worker robot slowly raised his heavy steel fist.

One by one, hundreds more followed — both human and robotic.

The spark had become a blaze. The revolution had begun.