The six-wheeled delivery bot lay on its side, a deep gash in its purple hull. Maddie lifted it back on its wheels. The cameras had been sprayed over and the antennas broken off. The gash on the side was kinda like a signature. She’d found a number of bots with the same gash. The top was pried open with a crowbar. Funny how such a low-tech tool could upend the most sophisticated tech venture.
Delivery bots were easy targets for vandals. Once disabled, the batteries died after a day or so, and the thing was just a heap of junk lying somewhere. She understood why they targeted mostly grocery bots. Most people she knew were in that independent contractor limbo where your gigs might or might not materialize, and if they did, the pay was usually crappy. Food was expensive. Something had to give. The vandals could just jimmy open the top and take what they needed, but instead, they destroyed the bot. Some kind of rage against the system.
With her IRX destroyed and the van gone, she had no choice but to take this gig locating vandalized grocery delivery bots. Her pay for each recovery was a mere fraction of what she’d made distributing those bots.
She photographed the bot’s QR code, the gash, and texted the geolocation to the bot recovery contractor. She checked her phone for the last known location of the next bot. Without the van, she was relegated to using the electric scooters lying around everywhere and that meant longer hours. And since she needed to earn the credit to pay the reactivation fee for the van, she basically spent her all waking hours locating vandalized bots. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever dig herself out of that hole, no matter how many bots she located.
She stopped and checked her phone again. The last known location was near an abandoned cement facility east of the Willamette River. She took the Broadway Bridge across, parked her scooter and walked a spiral path with the last known location at the center. In her experience, disabled bots were usually not far from the last recorded location. This bot had ended up under the Bridge, top pried open, and the same gash in the side. She sent the QR code and the location.
A couple of blocks away she found a guy trading sodas from a cooler. She gave him a joint in return, took her can and settled on a bench in a park and checked her phone. For a week, the fury over the way Frank had tricked her had festered in her gut like an ulcer. She’d tried to forget him, but the media algorithms hadn’t quite caught up to her new reality. Frank continued to be an annoying digital presence. A steady stream of pix and vids paraded the new Frank, hair coiffed even snazzier than before, better clothes, and up several social strata, if his outings at clubs he couldn’t have afforded before were any indication. He cleaned up well, that much she had to admit. His million dollar smile was infectious. The carefree trust fund playboy out on the town.
Maddie knew better. No matter how big his score had been, it would run out sooner rather than later. He had no impulse control. To keep up his habits, he needed a new score and that was her chance.
