Although her soul could not comprehend such bizarre behaviour as replicating the dead, the body in front of her brought light at the end of the tunnel. Mrs Smith could already see the resemblance of her late husband forming right in front of her.

“How is this even possible?” she asked, looking like she had seen a ghost.

The factory manager didn’t look like a man who wanted to be emotionally involved in the situation. It wasn’t part of his job description, nor did he care about Mrs Smith’s feelings about the robot merchandise in front of her.

“It will cost you a million rand ma’am,” the factory manager said.

Mrs Smith took out her purse, wrote a million rand cheque and gave it to the factory manager.

“Thank you very much ma’am,” the factory manager said, shaking Mrs Smith’s hand. “It was good doing business with you.”

Through the selling of machines designed to replace the dead, and with the help of artificial intelligence, the company known as Robot Factory Industries, which is a mechanical engineering site, was on a mission to bring back dead husbands to their widows, and fathers to their sons and daughters. The company created robots designed to help human beings by immobilising the technical problems that, by doing so, will enable human-like behaviour in their machines. They also did this to facilitate family reunions between lost family members by reuniting the dead and the living through artificial intelligence.

Mrs Smith was just one of the many devoted customers who turned to the robotics company for help when her husband died in a car accident two years prior. She was just a widow grieving the death of her husband when an unknown man knocked on her door playing god.

“Good day Mrs Smith,” the man said.

This was the day Mrs Smith was manipulated into cheating death and bringing her husband back from the dead.

“My name is Professor Brooke,” the man continued.

The Professor then went on to tell Mrs Smith about an industrial site known as Robot Factory Industries; a place where dead people were brought back to life as robots with the help of artificial intelligence. But the thought of an unknown man speaking about her late husband in such a manner made Mrs Smith feel disrespected in her own home.

“Who do you think you are sir?” she barked at the Professor.

Then an unexpected thing happened. The Professor’s eyes turned red and his entire body froze. The Professor, it turned out, was not a real human being, he was a newly designed artificially intelligent robot.

“What the hell is going on!” Mrs Smith shouted, but the robot just stood there staring at her with its red eyes. “If you don’t stop acting strange I’m calling the police,” she continued.

That’s when the man responsible for designing the robot posing as Professor Brooke approached Mrs Smith.

“Hello Mrs Smith, my name is David Sithole,” the man introduced himself. “I am a mechanical engineer specialising in Robotics.”

“Okay Mr David, what do you want from me?” Mrs Smith asked.

The man held her right hand and smiled. “I want to reunite you with your late husband,” he said. “This was just a demonstration of the work we do.”

Mrs Smith was in complete shock, looking at this strange man standing next to a robot resembling a human being right in front of her eyes. David Sithole, the mechanical engineer, was also the Chief Executive Officer of Robot Factory Industries. He made a promise to Mrs Smith that he would help her deal with the loss of her late husband, Kermit Smith, by designing an artificially intelligent robot that would resemble him. This would be a social android machine resembling Kermit Smith, and it would replace Mrs Smith’s late husband.

This was how Mrs Smith’s late husband was brought back from the dead. Kermit Smith, who was now an artificially intelligent robot, was finally designed and ready to act as Mrs Smith late husband.

“Kermit honey, can you hear me?” Mrs Smith asked her newly designed robot husband.

The robot slowly turned its head and looked at her.

“It’s me Mary, your wife,” Mrs Smith said.

The robot could barely walk while Mary continued trying to bring back her dead husband.

“Yes! I can hear you Mary,” the robot finally replied.

Looking at the robot, Mary could not believe her eyes. The man of her dreams was finally back in her life. She then slowly pulled her robot husband through the doorway of her kitchen, and brought him into the house.

“Welcome home Kermit,” Mary said. “Oh I missed you so much, my husband.”

Then all of a sudden, the robot slowly turned its head towards Mrs Smith and said, “I think I’m about to explode, Mary. The electrical circuit inserted into my brain has malfunctioned.”

Mrs Smith could not believe what she was hearing. “What did you just say?” she asked.

The robot’s eyes turned red and it exploded in front of Mrs Smith. Unexpectedly, the explosion caused shock waves which caused Mrs Smith’s eardrums to rupture and she suffered internal bleeding. The explosion also left Mrs Smith laying on the kitchen floor next to her door with her body both burned and bruised.

Kermit, the artificial intelligent robot resembling Mrs Smith’s late husband, was broken. All it’s biometric body parts were displaced and scattered all over the place. There was a malfunction inside the robot’s circuit board, which automatically deactivated the brain implant inserted into its head. The internal engine of the robot exploded, resulting in a fire, whose smoke polluted the oxygen inside the house.

The fire continued to burn while Mrs Smith’s body turned cold, and she died from the explosion of what was supposed to be her robot husband, which was bought from Robot Factory Industries.

“Oh my goodness, Mrs Smith’s house is on fire!” a neighbour shouted as the other residents in Mrs Smith’s community began gathering around, looking on as her house and her corpse burned into ashes.

“Can somebody please do something, Mrs Smith is going to die in there!” the neighbour shouted, dialling the number for emergency services on her cell-phone.

“Community fire fighters, how can we help you?” replied one of the assistants in the emergency call centre.

“Yes, my name is Gertrude Mlangeni, I am calling from Orange town,” the neighbour said. “There is a fire in my neighbourhood, one of my neighbour’s house is on fire.”

A huge scandal broke out in the media. The news broke through social media, television and newspapers, and Robot Factory Industries was from then on known as “Robot Factory: Killer Robots” on various media outlets. David Sithole, the head of the company, was issued with a warrant for his arrest.

A police officer knocked on David’s door. “Good day sir, are you Mr David Sithole?” asked a policemen.

“Yes I am him, what is going on?” replied David.

“You are under arrest for negligence and the selling of dangerous equipment to your customers. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” the policemen said.

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