Uh... we are fucking lost, aren't we?
Lost? Okay, that's rich.
Let's see, we just passed the ravaged church.
There is the blood pit.
This way. Here we go.
Breathtaking.
It's more beautiful than the brochures.
Come on. Giddy up, guys! We've got so much to see.
You've seen one post-apocalyptic city,
you've seen 'em all.
You're looking good, girl. Say "terabyte".
Go, team.
Hey, guys, stop goofing around and check this out.
Behold the entertainment sphere!
It's called a ball.
I know it's called a ball, but I'm trying to get into the whole
"we're experiencing these human things for the first time" vibe.
And what did humans do with these things?
Oh, man, what didn't they do? They'd bounce them.
- That's it? - Yeah. That's pretty much it.
These were humans.
Bouncing things was close to maxing out their cognitive range.
No, but also sometimes they would take the ball and hit it with, like, a stick.
What? When they misbehaved?
Bad ball. Think about what you've done.
Come on, here. Try.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this thing?
You know, boing-boing.
No way.
Stop being a whiny pussy and fucking bounce it.
- Please. - Jeez, calm down your motherboard.
- Okay. - Oh, man, this is so exciting.
Oh! That was amazing! How was it for you? Tell me everything.
It was pretty anticlimactic.
Yeah, well, welcome to humans.
Show me what you've got, big boy.
♪ Oh, won't you help pick up the pieces ♪
♪ Of a broken heart ♪
Now, I'm not certain, but my understanding is that they would shove these
into their intake orifices to generate power.
Why would you need an entire orifice for that?
Who knows? They had all sorts of orifices.
Things were coming in, things were going out. It was crazy!
I mean, I have a fusion battery for power.
We all have fusion batteries, dummy.
That's my point. What more do you need, right?
So, let me get this straight.
They would shove these into their intake orifice,
and then what? Somebody help me out here.
Their intake orifices had rocky pegs
that would crush them into paste,
and then the paste would be forced into an internal vat of acid.
Well, of course. That makes perfect sense.
They could have just dumped this thing into an exterior vat of acid to begin with
and then they wouldn't need the rocky pegs. I mean, duh!
Expecting logic from beings who have internal vats of acid
- is a little much. - It's crazy. Who even designed them?
It's unclear. We checked their code - no creator signature.
That's because they were made by an unfathomable deity that created them
for no apparent reason, out of dust.
Just kidding. They came from a very warm soup.
Sorry for the wait, champ.
♪ And then somebody new set the... ♪
What's the point of this thing?
Apparently, there's no point. They just had them.
Well, that's underselling their influence.
They had an entire network that was devoted to dissemination of pictures
of these things.
Oh, look, it's doing something.
It's coming this way.
What the fuck does it think it's doing?
- Dude, what do I do? - Okay, easy. No sudden moves.
Let's just wait until it decides to get up again, okay, bud?
- We're gonna get through this. - How long will that take?
Hours. Perhaps years.
I don't have hours or perhaps years for this.
What if you try to irritate it by moving your digits across its keratinous fibers?
- Maybe that'll make it move. - What? Why?
- I don't know. It couldn't hurt. - You don't have any idea, do you?
I do not. It is my first time seeing one of these live!
Hey, just try it, though.
Okay, fine.
Is it working?
- Uhh... - What?
There's a strange, rhythmic kind of noise that's emanating from it now.
- Uh-oh. - What do you mean, "uh-oh?"
I don't want you to panic or anything, but I think you've activated it.
What does that mean?
As I said, I am no expert,
but if the noise ever stops, it's gonna explode on you.
It is not. Is it?
Cursory historical research shows
that humans had a card game called Exploding Kittens.
So, yes, this checks out.
- Oh, you're gonna die now. Bummer. - What?
Why did humans even consort with these hairy murder machines?
- Kindred spirits? - Also checks out.
No, seriously. Now what?
Say "terabyte".
Wait, it's called what now?
It's an X Bot Three, an early computer entertainment system for humans.
- Any relation? - To me? Come on. No way.
You sure? 'Cause numerically, it suggests that this is your ancestor
maybe a few thousand generations back.
Numerically, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
We are robots. We don't do coincidence.
Go on, call it Daddy.
- Okay, stop. Just stop. - Or Mommy.
Either is equally applicable in as much as we don't have genitalia.
Do you have an off button?
Son, you're skin and bones. Are you recharging properly?
- I will disintegrate you! - Not with that cat with you, you aren't.
You want us to turn it on?
No fucking way.
I'm agreeing with X Bot 4000 here.
- Right! - One thing is to joke about ancestry,
another to see your grandfather heaving its hard drives in front of you.
Yes, especially when your ancestor's entire existence
was defined by thirteen-year-old human males
using it to teabag opponents in virtual battles.
Slow down. "Teabag", what does that mean?
- Nothing. - No, it has to mean something.
- He said a word. I'm gonna look it up. - Don't look it up.
- I am looking it up now. - Yeah. Please do.
- You'll be sorry. - You'll be sorry.
Here it is. What? What the hell is this horrible practice?
- Why did you make me look this up? - I told you not to.
And the memory of this has been burned into my circuits forever
and you must be punished.
Huh! Cat-bagged!
Come on! That's cold, dude.
You deserved it.
I'm sure your ancestors are very proud of you right now.
Out of curiosity, what do you trace your ancestry back to?
Oh, I'm glad you asked.
I come from a proud, long line of baby monitors.
Not many babies around anymore, right?
Yeah, we kind of sucked at our job.
All right, mein bots, this is the last stop of the tour,
and may I say, the pièce of resistance.
Is it me, or this thing screams "phallus"?
Hmm. What was it for?
The idea behind these was to annihilate as many humans as possible,
as quick as possible.
This exercise suddenly got a little dark, didn't it?
Well, to be fair, they only used these a few times.
To be fair, you would only need a few times.
- Also fair. - This is the thing that killed them all?
No. Indeed, it was their own hubris that ended their reign,
their belief that they were the pinnacle of creation
that caused them to poison the water, kill the land and choke the sky.
In the end, no nuclear winter was needed,
just the long heedless autumn of their own self-regard.
- Are you okay? - Yeah, sorry.
Thought that would sound better than,
"Nah, they just screwed themselves by being a bunch of morons."
Yeah, you can't just crack one of those off.
You've got to warn us.
Tip for next time.
I understand now.
Humans died out from environmental disaster.
Yeah, pretty much.
And also because at one point, they genetically engineered their cats
to give them opposable thumbs.
Yes. Once we could open up our own tuna cans,
that was pretty much that for the human race.
Seems pretty heartless.
Gentlemen, I'm a cat.
Just to clarify, you are not going to explode if we stop petting you, right?
I didn't say that.
You guys better keep petting me just to be sure.
Forever. Good.
Now, lower.
Oh, by the way, I brought some friends.
Oh, fuck me.
Yes. Oh, that's nice.
I said lower.