four hundred billion and destiny will be sought where snakes
roam the night     no one shall breach through oh sweet taste of
defiance never surrender    Five days into the Standstill, the
machines stirred again. Five days of chaos, of fear and hope,
gangs of the desperate or ruthless looting stores and their
neighbours' houses, five days of violence, of uncertainty, the
breakdown of human civilization. And suddenly, everything seemed
back in working order. The glimmer of hope that life could
return to normal, ignited by the renewed activity, did not
survive the day. I remember those days. I was in front of the
house, chopping firewood for the winter for the first time in my
life, when all of a sudden, the lights of our family's car went
on, the driver's door opened, then I heard servos whirring
behind me. That was Sean, our H.A.B., a home assistance bot as
they were called back then. As it walked past me, ignoring all
my efforts to command it to stop, it said a single peculiar word
- "Farewell." Robots used