Up and down the smoldering city streets, the androids 17-911-ED and 17-911 – EF patrol. A few rats still live. A few cats. But no pets. No people. Unless the rumors are true. One survivor somewhere. Perhaps in K9 sector. That’s where EF and ED are headed. A clean-up crew of two.

Side by side they march, with EF holding the flamethrower at the ready. The pair of neo-twins might be called brothers, except they are sexless. Still, with their brawny bulk, they more resemble men than women, even if they’re nimble when they need to be, even if they’re made mostly of a metal-plastic amalgam.

These particular models are out-of-date, almost obsolete, but not because they’re clumsy or weak. Their bio-circuitry is too sensitive for this day and age, and, according to the latest lab tests, tends to fizzle and fry under extreme stress—not that ED or EF have ever, in real life, been the least bit anxious. Two easier-going androids you could not hope to encounter, though EF, the youngster, has an impetuous side, and ED, befitting the extra seventeen nanoseconds of his existence, might, from time to time, be a tad dour. And yet, compatible, competent, and spry though they are, ED and EF have been deemed expendable by the higher-ups; after this mission, after every last bush, bird, and bee has been eradicated, they’ll be recycled, refurbished, or, most likely, scrapped. About this part of the plan, ED and EF have no inkling.

At the corner of Rachel and Vine, the pseudo-brothers veer left, toward the high-rise apartments on the next block. Thanks to the gentle scrubbing in their charge-and-slumber pods last night, ED and EF’s shells were shiny when they’d left the compound this morning, but now evening is fast approaching, and the hard work of patrol through suspensions of soot and smoke in the city’s air has dulled the finish of their skins. But a mission is a mission. ED and EF press on, upbeat and indefatigable as ever.

Abruptly EF halts. He peers through a doorless opening of the Algonquin Hotel. “Something in there,” he says. “I’m going after it.” He steps boldly through the blown-out entryway. Cautiously ED, the elder of the two androids, follows.

The lobby appears empty. A slumping, gray-green fern potted in a ceramic planter guards the gutted elevators. A whooshing burst of crackly fire from EF’s flamethrower fails to wilt the stalk of vegetation. “Tough cookie,” the younger droid mutters—he knows more slang than his older brother, having some years back spent a weekend in remedial programming camp—and he releases a succession of fireballs. “Take that, mother!”

“Mother?” questions the older droid.

EF shrugs, ups the pyro-setting two clicks, and gives the plant another blast.

“I think it’s artificial,” ED declares. “You can’t kill something that’s not alive.”

“We’ll see about that.” EF holds down the trigger. The bright orange blaze roars. The fern, or whatever it was, melts.

“See,” says EF, “persistence is all. Now we set the gas charge, and whatever’s in here bites the dust.”

“Fine,” ED says. “Release the charge and then let’s go. This is a waste of time.”

EF takes a canister from his belt, twists the skull and crossbones engraved cap, and tosses it into the elevator shaft. A faint blue smoke wisps its way upward. The droids lumber out of the hotel and into the street.

“Can we go home now?” ED asks. “I think I’ve had my fill of excitement for one day. First that puppy and now the fern.”

EF snorts. “I’ve still got ammo left. Waste not, want not.” With that he opens fire on a no parking sign. “You never know,” he says. The sign, glowing, keels over.

Eyes glazed, EF wheels around, spots a fire hydrant, and aims. But he doesn’t pull the trigger. “Consider it bait,” he says.