The iRobot company is something that actually exists. This is the company responsible for the roomba automated vacuum.
Imagine that it has been a staple into the ill-defined future, where genetically manipulation is commonplace and bio-toys run rampant as pests. Let it be granted that with the rate of innovation in the study of automation and robotics, the humble roomba has evolved into something miraculous and incredible. Something that should be a marvel of its time, but reduced to a simple commodity, much like the concept of fluffies.
Thus,
Meatsack; Fluffy Ex Machina-- Fluffy IN the Machine
The streets are familiar, yet different.
Pillars of glass and concrete dominate the architecture of a city. Signs and strips of neon glow in the nightly hours. The thrum and bedlam of traffic echoes along every massive, congested corridor.
Unnoticed by the busy lives that speed from one point to the next in pursuit of pay or pleasure, the robotic slaves to cleanliness whir along on their rubberized wheels. Spindly limbs are tucked close to their cylindrical chassis, oddly reminiscent of skeletal wings. On each appendage is some utility for cleaning.
Brushes. Hose nozzles. Scrubbers. Rakes. Brooms. Sprays. All the equipment an automated maid may need while patrolling the nooks and crannies of a city infested with the worst vermin of all.
One such servant receives a message from its control hub: the subway stop a block away from its location has had an incident occur. Cleaning services are required. The roving bot sends its binary acknowledgement and starts to roll out to commence its purpose.
There is an oversight in this instruction. The fluffies responsible are still on-site and have yet to be captured and relocated. The cleaner is at the service elevator before the overseers could catch the logistical error. It is underground and away from their control before they could rescind the order.
These descendents of the modern day roomba are self-guided once removed from their controlled network. They’re told where to go, and they do a job well, unsupervised.
When the elevator doors opened, the unit wasted no time speeding out onto the metro platform. It all but glided over the tiles and in no time it had arrived at the other end of the station where a band of ferals squabbled over the garbage can that they had toppled.
One of the members of the group had been on the wrong side of the receptacle when it was pushed over, so now that fluffy was a twisted corpse pinned underneath the lip of the garbage can. Its blood and guts were splattered across the floor and its eyes had bulged out of their sockets.
The other fluffies did not notice their dead, former friend, for they were too busy attempting to gorge on the bounty of spilled goods. For this same reason, they were oblivious to the silver sentinel dispatched to clean their mess. Until it was too late.
“Fwuffy wub twa-- hay-- wha–” The fluffy tried to grasp with its blunt hooves, the colorful checked cardboard box of some fast food chain. The roomba’s adept claspers were not perturbed and easily confiscated the ill-gotten contraband.
The fluffy broke into tears, and the sorrowful sound brought the others to attention. Their first impulse was to ask their companion what was the source of the sadness, but they too took notice of the robot. Its myriad limbs were scooping up the refuse with dazzling efficiency.
“Scawy shinies-munsta,” the fluffies murmured to one another while the one continued to cry. “Nu faiw!” bemoaned the fluffy. “Nu faiw! Dat fwuffy nummies! Nummies! Fwuf-hee-hee-hee, huu huu huu…”
The others watched as the limbs took their fellow feral in their clutches and lifted it into the air. They balked, “Bad upsies! Bad upsies bad fo’ fwuffy!”, though the roomba cared not due to being a simple machine.
“Scawed! Pud fwuffy downsies! Wai fwends nu hewp fwuffy!? Nu wub anymoa?” the taken fluffy blubbered senselessly in between whimpers and bouts of tears.
The roomba rolled over to the bloodied bin and righted it with some of its excess manipulators. Then it shoved the fluffy into the garbage. So carless was the motion of its thin metal arms, the terrified creature banged its head off of the rim of the trashcan and was silenced. Permanently.
Luckily by then, it was out of view of the others. “Whewe fwend go? Fwend?”
The smell of cooked, greasy food, spellbound the senses of the ferals. They saw the redness that was once their living comrade, and one of them proclaimed,
“Shinies-munsta use human magickies to bwing Skettiwand!”
“Sketties! Wub! Wub sketties soooo muchies!” the others concurred all too quickly.
“Ta’e fwuffy to Skettiwand too, nice munsta!” the misguided fluffy volunteered. It all but charged towards the robot as it began to spray and scrub the trashcan clean.
Three appendages converged on the fluffy and hoisted it up in one fell swoop. Experiencing the strength of the grip was very different to watching it happen to some other fluffy.
“Hewp! Skettiwand huwties! Stahp pinches, munsta!”
The fluffy was tossed into the garbage. It bounced off the side of the receptacle with a shriek as several of its bones were instantly shattered.
“W-wai Skettiwand sound wike huwties?” stammered one of the onlookers. The fluffy’s cries from inside the garbage can had a most unnerving, echoing hollowness to them.
“F-f-fwuffy scawed! Fwuffy wun! Too scawedies!”
With the first one’s routing, the remainder soon followed, leaving the roomba to clean in peace while the disposed fluffy cried out in vain.
“Wai no wub fwuffy no moa!? Fwuffy sowwy, fwends! Huu huu, wan’ fwends! Wan’ Skettiwand!”
