“Do you want to call a code blue on this place?”

“Definitely not, I don’t have enough information.” That meant a rapid response team would be sent down from Washington, all highly trained military, local city, county, and state law enforcement, would be mobilized, and all of them would descend on the compound with full tactical gear and weapons. The area would look like a war had broken out.  

“Ok, I’ll contact you when you can have some satellite time.”

Since his department was low on the pecking order that could take anywhere from hours to days depending on what was going on in the world. He decided to drive back to the store just because he could. There was something pleasurable about driving yourself down a country road with the wind in your hair, if he had any, windows down, music playing, something from a bygone era. Of course, he would never drive in the gridlock that was Washington, would rather be reclining in the seat in meditation or playing one of the 4-D games.

He parked outside of the store. Just like Margaret said, a big black, Hummer pulled up. It was one of the last synthetic fuel models made. The woman got out of the passenger side wearing a large hat, sunglasses, jeans, and a print shirt and went into the store. Aiden went into the store. She had a cart and was quickly taking items off the shelves. He walked up to her. She tried to ignore him, not looking at him, keeping her eyes on the canned goods.

Aiden took out his identification and said, “Excuse me, Agent Knowles NSA can I see your identification.”

“Sorry, I left it at home.”

She kept her head turned so he didn’t have a full view of her face which was covered in wrinkles looking like a dry riverbed.

“In that case, I will need a DNA sample.”

She froze. There was no way she could refuse the Supreme Court had settled that decades ago. She took a can of beans off the shelf, turned, and threw it at him. It bounced off his chest. She tried ramming him with the cart. He pushed the cart out of the way and took her to the ground in a controlled efficient way. After putting on the handcuffs, he roughly took off the hat and sunglasses. He took out the DNA analyzer and removed the probe. She was struggling trying to keep her mouth shut. He pulled her head back and pinched the nose forcing the mouth open. The plastic probe went roughly over her gums and cheeks. He held her down as the sample was analyzed. The results appeared on the screen: Sara Daly age fifty-two.

“Sara Daly, I’m arresting you for violation of the Robotics Act.”

There was no fight in her. Aiden led her out of the store where she would be flown to the Universal Robotics office in Palo Alto for her robotic transformation. Since she didn’t volunteer for the procedure, she would be subject to paying transportation and all related costs. For those who volunteered, the government paid for all expenses, but most people paid for the yearly maintenance program like they used to pay for Medicare.

They passed by Margaret Samples who was standing by the checkout. “It’s about time you got her. You better check out that compound there is a lot of them there.”