"Autofac", de Philip K. Dick
Resumo da Wikipedia:
It is set some years after an apocalyptic world war has devastated Earth's civilizations, leaving only a network of hardened robot "autofacs" in operation to supply goods to the human survivors. Once humanity has recovered enough to want to begin reconstruction, the autofacs are immediately targeted for shutdown since they monopolize the planet's resources, but the ability to control them was lost in the war. This leaves the future of humanity, and the planet, in uncertainty as the autofacs consume every resource they can attain to produce what they perceive as needed. The story involves the human survivors as they try to steal the supplies they need and search for a way to take the power of production back into their own hands.
Ele apareceu em uma coleção chamada Histórias selecionadas de Philip K. Dick .
Outro site tem seu próprio resumo do enredo que inclui o final que você descreve:
After attacking each other, many of the Autofacs are disabled. Perine notices that instead of the automated factories, vines are taking over the world. Local manufacturing and food production has revived in the human settlements. They have been investigating the factories, finding many of them destroyed. Perine and O’Neill discuss opening up the factories for production, now under their control again. They enter the Kansas City Autofac to see what they can revive. They go down deep into the factory, looking for things to salvage of machines to control. Deep into the factory, Morrison feels something begin to move. They learn that the Autofac—although destroyed—has been sending out copies of itself like seeds around the planet and possible to other planets.
O mesmo website menciona que a história também foi encontrada em Minority Report e Other Classic Stories por Philip K. Dick . A história está disponível nessa página publicação no Google Livros e também no Arquivo da Internet .