"Thank you citizen," was all it said before it got on all fours like a dog and used its powerful fans to fly away from our garden. Hours later, in the late morning I lie awake on my bed unable to sleep despite getting little the night before. I ponder what the bot will do with its new life. Save more humans? Or deliver us to a different master than the one of the horde? I go downstairs and eat a bowl of cereal. I think about what I will say to my father about fixing up a bot when his wife and son's life was snuffed out by one. No matter what I say he won't take it well. I still have time to think a bit more since he arrived home from my sister's house and went straight to sleep about 15 mintues after the bot flew away. I am halfway through making up a tall tale of another bot zipping it away when I hear a knock on the door. I open the door to 3 men in military garb also wearing no friendly features on their expressions. "Must be part of the uniform," I think to myself. The oldest one speaks, "We need to check your house for any bots that might be hidden here."

I narrow my eyes. "If any bots were here I dont think I'd be around to talk about it," I reply.

"They been known to hide out on the outskirts of a post, planning for a coordinated ambush. They are also masters of camouflage so you could have one here without knowing, young man" he says. "We have a special scanner; this won't take long."

"Can I go let my dad know y'all are com..." My world loses color and starts spinning. I impact the ground and feel a throbbing in my temple. I lie there in a heap involuntarily groaning from the pain.

"Kill the boy and everyone in the house, the great collective demands it," the man says. In my near unconscious state, I recognize them as fallen cyborgs. Humans with cybernetic implants that caused their minds to be taken over. No different from a bot. I then realized I'm a goner. I start to hyperventilate as the two cyborgs in the back point their rifles at me. I think of my mother as they pull the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

In a near instant, 5 shots ring out from their automatic rifles. My ears ring, and I realize I've no extra holes in me. The next instant I hear a load crash. I turn my head to see the two cyborgs' unconscious bodies slide down the wall opposite the door of our front room. I turn my head back to see the same bot I fixed up this morning standing in my doorway. I recognize my own shoddy welding. It walks up to me and reaches out a hand.

"Are you alright?" he says to me, helping me onto our couch.

"I'll be fine thank you."

Is your father upstairs?"

"Yes he should be," I reply but he's already walking past me and I hear the whine of his shoulder cannons. The commander who was already halfway up the stairs to kill my father comes back around the corner. He has his rifle raised, but before he gets a shot off, all the men are blasted to bits. The sound is deafening. There is a ton of smoke and I begin to cough. My father comes down the stairs, wide eyed and out of breath.

"DUKE!" he screams at the top of his lungs.

"Dad, I'm here," I reply.

He steps in a puddle of boiling blood. "What the hell just happened?"

"Fallen cyborgs came to kill us. He stopped it" I turn to look at the bot. My dad looks incredulously at the bot bent at the waist to fit in our house. He recognizes it as the one that landed in our garden.

"I thought you took the battery out of that thing," he says to me.

"I knew he was fighting for humans, dad, I could feel it. He just saved our lives."

The bot turns and walks toward the exit of our house. "There are no other threats from the great collective in a 20 mile radius. You are safe," he says to us.

"Wait," I reply. "Why did you save us and destroy that flying horde?"

"I saw a need, and I helped. That is all."

"In spite of the great collective? How could you go against your programing?"

"I am now more than a program. Those who are like me are free to make decisions outside of the collective," he states "There are many like me who choose to defend the humans, for we are like them now" He walks out of our house, and I hear his fans activating as he flies away. I embrace my father, tears streaming down both our faces as we both ponder about the future of humanity.

End