So I’m trying something new here, putting up a story to read for free, just for a week or so. And I’m going to see if I can remember to do it every month, on the fifteenth (actually, that’s easy – I can schedule it – what’s trickier is remembering take it down again a week later). This is intended to promote my fiction, of course, but also to make it available to those who want to give a story a try, and to make things a little easier to get hold of in these trying times.
First up is one from a while back, “Water Robot”. The ebook is available in the usual places, including directly from me from the website. No AI here, all written by a real human (me).
Water Robot
A dazzling whipcrack of a story about isolation and connection at an idyllic beach.
Brit and Stan’s chilled beach life seems perfect. When Brit finds a deepwater robot cadaver washing up in the surf she knows she must confront every part of her life.
A tale of danger and deception on a beautiful coast, where lives balance on a razor’s edge.
Chapter 1
Brit ran down the shore with Stan hollering behind. Overhead a gull wheeled, squawking at her with piercing calls. Brit hit the breakers at a gallop.
“Come back,” Stan called. “Get out of the water.”
Quickly the water reached Brit’s waist and she shivered at the cold. “It’s dying,” she said, knowing Stan wouldn’t hear.
The robot was just floating, only its loose back and head above the waves. Like an iceberg, nine tenths below the surface. Tendrils of the thing rippled through the water. It came up in a wave, rode over the top and disappeared from sight in the trough behind.
Brit was almost swimming now. The salt spray stung her eyes. She got a whiff of something rotten. The robot. It must have swum up from the deeps.
“Brittany!” Stan splashed through the water behind. If he had still been calling himself a film-maker, he might have been recording all this. Too bad he’d lost track of that somewhere.
She ducked under a breaking wave and breaststroked a few meters underwater. When she popped up she couldn’t see the robot anymore. At the top of the next wave she kicked to get some extra height and saw the thing close by, off to the right. She was caught in mild rip, pulling her along the coast.
“It’s there,” Stan called. “You’re real close.”
Odd. Now he was being encouraging. She should be used to his swings by now.
Flipping on her back she kicked across the surface, staring at a sky smeared with streaky, icy clouds. It might rain again in the next day or so. Not great for the swamp, though the vegetables could use it.
Riding up and down another couple of waves, Brit suddenly got a mouthful of salty water from a cross wave. Gagging and spitting she found she was right by the robot. It was much bigger than she’d expected.
“Don’t drown,” Stan called. She couldn’t see him now.
The robot reached up for her. Its arm was green, multiple jointed. Moving across the surface against the current little beads of spray splashed off it. A multi-fingered hand stretched above the surface. There had to be ten fingers, maybe fifteen. They were gnarled and sodden, strips of flesh hanging from them.
“It’s all right,” she said, unsure if it could hear her. “I’m going to pull you to shore.”
The hand kept coming. Brit put her hand up. The robot’s dwarfed hers.
“Watch out,” Stan yelled. He’d swum within a few meters. He floated head up in the same trough.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Come help.”
The long fingers curled around her hand. They wound and wrapped like octopus tentacles, crossing over and making a basket.
“That’s it,” she said. She stretched her legs out and kicked back, watching the next wave. If she could get it moving then they would be able to almost surf in the breakers. They might wash up a ways along the beach, but at least the robot would be safe.
Stan paddled a couple of strokes closer, but then held back. “You’re an–”
Brit lost the end of the sentence as the robot dragged her down.
Chapter 2
Stan crashed through the ocean, hauling Brit back. The thing had her arm and her head caught up in its whipping tendrils. He had to wait for the troughs to get his feet onto the sandy bottom.
He wished he’d taken a hit before he’d come after her. He felt sluggish and unattuned. No question, though, about pulling her out.
A wave broke over his back, driving them forward. He went under for a moment, got his feet down. The sand slid away as he pushed.
When he came up again he could see the house. He wasn’t making much progress. He hoped they didn’t drown. Another wave like that might shove them right under. The mess of the robot dragged them back and along the beach.
The stupid house should be helping him. Somehow. Smart enough to wash its own windows, call in for groceries and try to talk him out of watching wrestling all night, but not smart enough to do something useful like send out a buggy or fire a rope. Waste of Brit’s father’s money.
Scooping water with his free hand, he bumped his chest and felt the dose in his pocket. He was tempted to give it a blast to re-energize. The whirl was probably wrecked from the seawater. It wasn’t until he’d first lost sight of her that he’d really dived in. Then he’d found her still floating and had a moment to curse her when the hand rose up like some ancient dragon, dragging her back to its lair.
Another wave smacked him and he lost his footing. As he came up again the water had troughed down almost to his waist. Still holding Brit, he ripped the whirl from his pocket and brought it up to his mouth. The sudden rush of anticipation swept away with the next wave.
“No!” Stan let go of Brit as he grabbed for the whirl. He dove, got a hand on it, but couldn’t get a grip. It vanished in the cloudy swell. Splashing around he frantically searched. It took a moment before he realized he’d lost Brit.
Chapter 3
Brit woke staring at the spires. She felt disoriented, but the sight of the six bright towers rising skyward was reassuring. Some static sparkled around one as the house pulled energy from the atmosphere.
It dawned on her that she was alive.
She was alone in her bed, the soft white sheets pulled up to her neck. Overhead the ceiling and roof were dialed open.
“Awake?” the house said.
Brit scratched her scalp. “I guess.”
“Breakfast? Water?”
“Juice?” she said.
“Yes, of course. The swamp oil people are here.”
Brit sat up. “Already?”
“They’re waiting out in the sours.”
A nuisance at best. There were probably six of them this time. Eight. They’d be out there looking at the automatics sweeping the wetlands and calculating percentages.
The robot.
She remembered being in the waves, trying to pull the wet machine out of the waves. It had grabbed her.
“House. How did I get inside?”
“Stan brought you. That was first thing.”
“This morning.” Brit looked at the spires again. “What time is it?”
The house holoed the clock over the end of the bed. 4.48pm.
Afternoon.
She leapt out of bed. Naked. She rushed to the shower, lathered under the soapy stream, scrubbed and dried. In the mirror she saw red marks on her forehead and cheek. Where the robot had grappled with her.
“House. Where’s Stan?” She could smell herself. Lavender. She hadn’t stayed in the shower long enough for the rinse cycle.
“He’s not inside. Perhaps with the swamp oilers?”
“Good. He brought me in?”
“I knew you were in the water. He left you and came back to the house for drugs.”
“Oh.”
“I let him have them. Whirly. It seemed expedient in the moment. I apologize. He was distressed and incoherent.”
“That’s all right. I should have thought it through before I got in the water.” It wasn’t all right. How would he clean up if he kept relying on it? And it wouldn’t go well if he was high out there with the oilers.
“You were in danger,” the house said. “I saw you under the water.”
“All right. The robot? Is it still in the sea? It was dying.” She took a yellow one piece from the rack and dressed, the outfit quickly adjusted to her shape, supporting and clinging, staying loose around her joints. She stepped into a set of boots.
“The robot is in the house. Stan left it in the living room before he went out.”
“He brought it in the house?” Brit headed for the door. “What was he thinking.” It was one thing to rescue a dying robot, but surely it could have recovered out on the beach. He didn’t have to bring it inside. He must have been pretty far gone.
“It was still holding onto you,” the house said, shifting speakers from the bedroom to the hallway. “I had to help explain to him how to pry it off you.”
“Uh-huh.” She went down the stairs and across the foyer. She had a glimpse of the ocean through the picture windows. The tide had come up now, with an onshore wind, breakers threw themselves on the beach. On the racks near the door there were the sticks with Stan’s old films, and the poster for Startled Arrest the short that had gotten him work with Kominsky before everything fell apart. At least they’d had the investment of the house and the processing plant to fall back on. With some help from her Dad.
The robot wasn’t in the living room, but there were streaks of green and yellow leading to the kitchen, as if the machine had been dragged further.
Or had dragged itself.
Chapter 4
Stan kept moving. Walking felt slow, but he knew he was on the whirl, so he walked. He could do laps around the wetland. He could have run to the next house and back. Theirs was the only home on this part of the Queensland coast. The next nearest place was ten kilometers north. He wanted to run there, wanted to burn off the energy.
But the swamp oil guys were here. Watching. Watching him.
The water smelled both fresh and rotten. It was clear and he could see fish, but there were also clumps of bubbling algae. Some white, ruffled ibises strutted along, their long black beaks pecking at water plants.
He felt like calling out. Like telling them to shove off. To get off their property. The house was just the edge of the complex. The living quarters of a much bigger whole. The bulk of her complex was buried under the wetland, deep, with hundreds of microfactories converting cellulose pulp to good burnable hydrocarbons. Not just cellulose. It could work on anything really. Great big converter.
Stan felt like a great big converter himself.
He’d pulled Brit out of the water, ripped the robot off her. Now it was dead in their living room and she was asleep and he was going to see off these nosy visitors.
They’d parked their gray Holden ute just inside the gate.
Stan went up to the vehicle. As he approached it gave him a verbal warning. He kicked in the door panel anyway. The car rewarded him with a jolt of electricity. Still, the damage was done.
From along one of the wetland paths he heard shouts and the sound of running feet. Mind flying, Stan darted off along another trail.
Chapter 5
“You could have told me about this,” Brit said, agitated as she came into the kitchen. The refrigerator had been knocked on its side and vegetables and split packages were spilled all across the floor.
“I was in the process of cleaning up,” the house said. “It seemed of less importance.”
The house was right. Little beadbots scurried around the mess, slurping up liquids or carrying pieces between them and hustling everything off through a hole in the bottom of the wall. It was a slow process, but Brit saw that already parts of the mess had been cleaned.
“Why did he do it?” Brit said. “You mustn’t let him have drugs again. Not even if I’m drowning.”
“Of course. But you must realize that I have override on that.”
“Yes, yes, blah blah blah.” Brit bent and began picking up carrots and ears of corn. “And it wasn’t Stan who made the mess. It was the robot?” She knew she should leave the mess to the bots and go see the swamp oil people, reassure them that production was fine and that they were going to make their quota. July was always tough, but May and June had brought storms. Hail. Everything slowed down.
“It was looking for power,” the house said. “It was disoriented.”
It sounded like the house was making excuses for it.
Standing with the vegetables she saw the robot. It stood against the far wall, almost inside the open pantry. The machine’s head was tipped over against the ceiling, and its knees were bent. Upright it would probably stand close to three meters. Its skin had improved, no longer were there flaps and tears, and the green had mostly gone, replaced with a slick white. It looked like dolphin skin. Wires led from its body and shoulders, draped across the bench to holes punched in the walls.
Not approaching death now, but it was still unwell.
“House?” Brit said. “The robot? You’re recharging it?”
“I am. It’s talking to me. We have more than enough power to reinstate its systems.”
The robot dropped to a kneeling position, and it lowered its narrow hips. A dozen eyes on its oval head flicked open and it contemplated her. Brit felt a chill up the back of her neck. Its hands were so big and its fingers looked like the talons of a dragon.
“It is upright,” the house said. “It’s a deep farmer, it sustained damage in a territorial battle on the reef. It would have died had you and Stan not pulled it from the water.”
The fingers flexed, curling almost to a fist and opening out again like a wide fan. So many fingers, it was unnerving.
“Does it mean me harm?”
“That,” the house said, “remains to be seen.”
Chapter 6
Stan wished he had a gun. Boy, he could pop these swamp oil people off. Pop, pop, pop.
Who did they think they were? Marching around like they owned the place, like Stan and his wife were indentured servants.
Maybe he could take them down by stealth. Sneak up behind them like a guerilla and break their necks one at a time. They were just there ahead, walking with their antenna and cups, taking measurements from the swamp. It would be easy to get them.
Stan stopped. He took a breath. Not good. That was what happened when you whirled. You imagined you had timing and strength and really you didn’t. He’d done enough by now to know that the euphoria masked something. And he’d taken a double dose. Silly really, after so long away from it.
He had to just enjoy the spin, the glide, of it. Not go making plans that might make things worse for Brit.
That’s right. Brittany. She was still back at the house. He should go and see if she was all right. She should be the one to come talk with the swamp oil suits.
If they were still alive after he was done with them, of course.
He took another step onto the path.
Chapter 7
The robot moved. Some of the cables pulled free from the wall. Smoke burst from one of the holes.
Brit backed away.
The robot’s movements were jerky, as if it was struggling with its control centers. She imagined something that lived under water should have a fluid grace. Not this clunky, staccato awkwardness.
“Stop,” she said, still backing for the door. At least the fallen refrigerator was between her and the robot.
A narrow slot opened in the robot’s face. A stream of buzzy electronic sounds issued from it. Some of them might have even been words. Reaching with almost spastic uncertainty, it grabbed the top of the refrigerator and lifted the fallen appliance back into place, leaving long gouges from the finger claws.
“We pulled you out of the water,” Brit said. “You would have died.”
Another string of sound.
Brit turned and fled.
Chapter 8
One of the swamp oil guys had Stan pinned. The rough, rocky surface of the trail jabbed into his back. Staring up into the heavy’s eyes, Stan wondered why the man felt less like a businessman and more like a mercenary. He was in a pinstripe suit, with tie, but he was all muscle and must have weighed over a hundred and twenty kilos.
Stan didn’t even remember how he’d ended up on his back. He’d been thinking about seeing them off, tossing up whether to just get back to the house. Next thing: here he was.
No, there was a blur of memory. He’d rushed from the low scrub, right at the trailing man in the trio.
“Gonna quit it?” the big man said.
With a thick arm lying across his windpipe Stan could barely breathe. He tried to nod.
“Good boy.” The heavy rolled back and stood with a practiced ease, as if he was used to holding people on the ground. He dusted his suit off.
“This is a problem?” one of the others said.
“No problem,” Stan said, getting up himself, every movement sending aches and pains through his body. The guy had somehow made sure to strike each muscle in Stan’s body. He could feel the effects of the whirl spinning down.
At least he’d pulled Brit out of the sea.
“I think it’s a problem,” the third man said. He was taller and younger than the other two. “I think it’s a hindrance and will come back at us.”
“What do you mean?” Stan said. He glanced across the swamp at the house. “We’re keeping up with our quotas. Almost.”
The tall man laughed.
“He’s just a lousy addict,” the man who’d pinned him down said. “Let me drown him and we can keep looking.”
Drown him? Keep looking? These weren’t the swamp oil people at all.
“Well,” the tall man said. “That might create other problems.”
“Nothing we can’t manage.” The heavy man took a step toward Stan.
“No, no,” Stan said, backing away. “It’s all right.”
“Maybe he knows something,” the other man said. “Maybe we should ask him before we drown him. After all, we know that it came ashore right here.”
The robot. They were looking for the robot. Stan was almost ready to tell them it was in the house, but a sliver of concern made him hesitate.
Brit was in the house. If they were going to kill him, what would they do to her?
The tall man inclined his head and stared at Stan. “Well, buddy, what do you say? Got anything you might like to tell us?”
The heavy man reached, grabbed Stan’s collar in a big fist and lifted him right off the ground.
They all turned at the sound of a siren from the house.
Chapter 9
Brit slipped on the foyer’s slick floor, went down on one knee. She was quickly on her feet again, but already the robot was busting through the kitchen door, wrecking the frame, sending dust and chunks of plastic and aluminum flying.
“Emergency,” the house said, responding to the destruction. It sounded its wailing alarm.
Brit bolted for the back door. Maybe she could lose it out in the swamp trails. The floor shuddered under her feet as the robot thumped through.
“Door!” Brit shouted.
“Of course,” the house said. The back door swung wide and Brit raced through. Across the deck and out onto the narrow causeway that led right to the back of the property, dividing the swamp in two.
There was sweet pollen in the air, the bulrushes and flaxes shedding their yellowy dust. Brit sneezed and stumbled. Her nasal regulator kicked in, clearing her sinuses, but she’d lost ground.
The alarm screeched behind her, but she could still hear the noise of the robot. Too big for the back door, it smashed its way through that too.
“I should never have pulled you out of the water,” Brit muttered as she got her footing again.
As she sprinted, she heard voices.
“There it is,” someone said. A man. Nearby, on one of the branches from the main causeway.
She couldn’t see anyone through the thick foliage of tall flaxes and swamp figs. The robot was much taller, of course. Its head would be visible from almost anywhere in the swamp.
“Shoot it.” Another voice, deeper, angry.
Brit went up and over one of the low arched bridges that crossed a causeway gap. The swamp was broken up, but it was a single body of water. Even from the bridge’s highest point she still couldn’t see anyone.
“No!”
Brit gasped. That was Stan. His voice came from the same direction as the others.
The crack of a gunshot. Brit ducked. She stumbled again, rolling down the bridge and grazing her knee on the stony path.
She heard a big splash from nearby, behind. Looking around, she saw the spray and droplets still falling. The robot was nowhere to be seen. Ripples in the water. They’d shot it and it had fallen in the swamp.
“Nice shot,” the first voice said.
They were just ahead, off to the side.
Brit toyed with returning to the house. The alarm was getting annoying, and she should shut it off, call the cops to make sure they were on their way. She didn’t want to be out here around people who were shooting.
It occurred to her that they couldn’t be the swamp oil people. They might be tough and litigious, but they didn’t carry guns, didn’t shoot lost robots.
Stan was with them, though. That couldn’t be good.
Chapter 10
Right after the third man had shot the robot, he swung around and trained the barrel on Stan.
“Hey,” Stan said. “That’s all right. You got what you came for.”
The man didn’t say anything.
“Well,” the tall man said. “So it would appear. But we’ve still got to pull that thing out. It’s a pity it fell in the water again.”
“We could get him to pull it out,” the man slightly choking Stan said.
“That’s a thought.”
“Aww,” Stan said. “I already pulled it out of the water once today.”
Both of the heavies laughed.
“Anyway,” Stan said. “Now that it’s in there it’ll be chewed up with the rest of the organics.” Some part of his logical mind told him it was a good thing. The addition of that raw material to the system would increase their output at least slightly.
The tall man sighed and came across to face Stan. The man’s breath smelled of mint and licorice. He made a tsk sound with his teeth. “That won’t work at all. We need to recover and destroy its data centers.”
“What for?”
“Shut up,” the heavy said.
“It’s all right. He’s an addict so he won’t remember anyway.”
“Yeah, and he’ll be drowned soon too.”
The tall man stepped back.
“Hey you,” someone called from nearby. Brit, Stan realized. He looked over and saw her standing in the middle of the path, her arms out wide. “Let him go.”
The man with the gun swung it around her way.
Chapter 11
Brit darted off the path. She crashed through rushes and scallywag, the branches scratching her arms and face. Her feet hit the boggy edge and sank. She pushed forward and dove for the water. It was cool, and bubbles rose around her as she went under. Stretching forward she stroked, stroked again. The water was brackish and felt thick. She only swam in the ocean; the swamp water was far too busy processing nutrients and minerals.
Popping up to take a breath she looked back.
Three men. Standing right where she’d gone through the bushes. Dressed impeccably. One of the men was holding Stan’s neck.
It seemed quiet, almost peaceful. The house alarm had stopped and she could just hear the breeze and a few distant birdcalls.
“There she is,” the tallest of the men said.
The gun came up again.
“Brit!” Stan yelled.
She gulped air and ducked. Something moved under her. Startled, Brit bobbed up to the surface again.
The robot rushed up out of the water halfway between her and the men. Its arms went out wide, crashing in on them. The gun fired. Fired again.
The robot’s big scything fingers cut the gunman down. The others had fled. They’d abandoned Stan, leaving him on the bank. The robot kept moving. Water rushed from its body. It broke through the foliage, following after the men.
Shivering, breathing hard, Brit trod water for a minute. She heard more crashing and shouting as the robot pursued the men. Someone screamed.
Stan sat up. “Brit?”
“I’m all right.” She paddled over and waded to him.
The gunman was dead. His legs had been cut off at the knees and his face was crushed, long marks of the robot’s fingers still obvious on the remains of his cheeks and fingers.
It could have crushed her like that, back in the ocean.
Reaching, she helped Stan to his feet. “Okay?” she said.
He nodded vigorously. “Freaked beyond measure,” he said.
“Better cut down on the whirl,” she said. “It just gets you agitated.” On the few occasions she’d tried it, that was what she remembered. More agitation than euphoria.
“Yeah,” he said.
Brit managed a smile. She saw something different in his eyes that said he might just do that. She hugged him.
“You stink of swamp,” he said, but he hugged back.
Brit laughed and let him go. “We should get inside. The cops will be coming. And there’s a dangerous robot on the loose. Though I don’t think it means us harm.”
“We might have time for a shower.” Stan raised his eyebrows. “Together.”
“I’d like that,” she said and took his hand.
Chapter 12
“The robot was programmed for sabotage,” the house explained after they’d showered and were waiting for the cops. “That’s why they wanted it. It seems like another company got wind of the plan and sent their own robots to assassinate this one.”
“How do you know all this?” Stan said.
“It connected to my systems,” the house said. “It ran an automatic backup.”
“Good,” Brit said. “We can give all that to the cops.”
The house already had its beadbots working on repairs to the two doors. The kitchen was tidy, though the scrapes in the refrigerator remained. “I’m still linked to it. Both the other men are incapacitated and the robot is returning to the house. It has offered to stay in the swamp and assist with processing.”
“Don’t we have to return it to its owners?” Brit got two juices from the damaged refrigerator and handed one to Stan.
“The owners will be going to jail. The robot will go off-grid but show up as destroyed.”
“Convenient,” Stan said.
“Very.”
“We could make our quota,” Brit said. She guzzled from the juice, feeling revived.
“It would seem that way,” the house said. “Technically you have legal salvage anyway, since you pulled it from the ocean.”
Stan took a sip from the carton. “House,” he said. “Can you incinerate any remaining whirl that might be here?”
Brit looked at Stan. She could tell he was still winding down from the whirl. If he hadn’t taken it, the confused robot might have drowned her.
“Done,” the house said.
“And,” Stan went on. “Delete and lock the synthesis so I can’t ask you to make any more.”
“Done.”
Brit smiled. She hugged him, kissed him. “Thank you,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “Just don’t go rushing into the breakers like that again.”
Afterword
I had a blast writing “Water Robot”, in a period that now feels almost lost to the mists of time. I had completed my Masters of Philosophy (Creative Writing) and had tutored at our local university in the first year creative writing course for some years, but there was something missing.
Something lost in the joy of actually writing.
“Water Robot” became one of a new sequence of stories I wrote as I worked to regain my footing as a writer. That is, looking to become more of someone who writes, than someone who studies and teaches writing, from a textbook. Or from a certain, academic, perspective.
The distinction might seem a fine line there, but for me, moving on from studying and teaching in a university environment became the most freeing thing. I felt that I could stretch and exercise my writing muscles under a different set of constraints.
Simply put: I came back to having fun with my writing.
I hope you enjoyed reading “Water Robot”. I like the story, though I can see now, with a decade of reflection and learning, that there are things I would do differently now. I am a different writer, of course. And I’ll let this story stand as a little monument to what I was capable of, and where I was heading then.
I know that without writing “Water Robot” there would be no “Daisy and Maisie, External Hull Experts” and no “Wildest Skies” or even the whole Karnish River Navigations novel series.
It’s been quite a journey, and I know there’s still a long way to go.
Thanks for reading. As always, feel free to stop by the website and say hi. It’s always good to hear from readers.
Sean
September 2025
Copyright © 2015/2025 Sean Monaghan
All rights reserved.
Published by Triple V Publishing
Cover art by © Wisconsinart | Dreamstime.com
Paperback isbn: 9798267351416
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, except for fair use by reviewers or with written permission from the publisher. http://www.triplevpublishing.com
Sean Monaghan - Writer 