Mass hysteria.
Nelson threw the newspaper into the waste bin and hustled down the steps to the subway. Whoever heard of flesh-eating robots anyway? Flesh-eating viruses, sure; flesh-eating humans, of course; but robots?
Nelson worked in artificial intelligence. He lived and breathed robots. And no matter what less-informed people said, or what the media reports blathered, he knew that it was all sensationalized nonsense.
After all, he knew robots. And robots didn’t eat meat.
He smiled to himself as he passed through the subway doors, pleased with his dry wit. Then the subway smiled to itself as well, and swallowed.
Author’s Note: I read an article about artificial intelligence from an expert in the field and he explained in depth why we shouldn’t worry about it. While I tended to agree with much of his line of thinking, it struck me that people like him were probably the most likely to be completely blindsided by the robot apocalypse.
Cool ending! Well-written and clever story.
Willful ignorance is one of my greatest pet peeves, so we just had to publish this story where such obstinate blindness has fatal consequences.