by J. I. Greco
“If I’d been turned into a zombie at her age, I don’t know if I would have come out of it any more sane.”
“So… you’re the new Mother Su now?”
“Mother Rox. But, yeah, I can’t leave. Not anymore. I’ve got responsibilities. Speaking of which… you ask her?”
“Ask who what?”
“Lock. About joining the coven. We talked about this…”
“Did we? Haven’t we pretty much established if it doesn’t directly put cash in my pocket or involve sex it’s all one-ear-out-the-other?”
Roxanne took a deep breath. “Can you please ask her next time you see her? It’s important.”
“Why can’t you ask her?”
“You haven’t noticed we don’t exactly talk, me and her?”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything, ‘cause you know, don’t care… Why is that again?”
“She took control of my body and mind against my will.”
“She gave ‘em back.”
“Not voluntarily.”
“That was the All-Mind,” Trip said. “Lock’s not the All-Mind anymore. She’s more me than anything, now. Little bit of you, too, you know.”
“All the more reason talking to her weirds me out.”
“So why do you want her joining the coven, then? This some elaborate plan to get her into a position where you can cold-shoulder her officially?”
Roxanne snuggled in close to him. “Forgiveness. It’s one of our prime tenants, so I really should give it a try.”
He put his arm around her. “You want Lock to join the coven so you can forgive her?”
“She joins, it’ll force me to put my money where my mouth is. Me and everyone in the coven she turned into zombies.”
“Again, that was the All-Mind.”
“Sure, but she’s the face of the All-Mind now, isn’t she? The sisters see her, all they see is that time they got turned into zombies.”
“How is Lock joining the coven gonna change that?”
“They’ll get to know each other. Hang out. Have fun. Have shared experiences. A little forced community and conversation and the sisters, me included, will start to see Lock as her own person, forgive and forget. That’s the plan, anyway. And it’ll be good for Lock, too. If you, you know, cared about anybody other than yourself, you might have noticed that Lock’s not exactly making an effort to fit in. She just sort of wanders around town day and night, staring at people.”
“Not all day and night. She’s been helping Rudy with the robots. He’s learning a lot from her. In fact, under her tutelage, just last weekend he finally figured out which side of a wrench is the working end. And believe you me, that’s really sped up his workflow.”
“Sure, but is she even trying to make friends?”
“Friends are over-rated.”
“If she joined the coven, maybe it would draw her out, help her be more… social.”
“Okay, I buy the arguments, but Lock isn’t the religious type. It’d be a hard sell.”
Rox ran a playful finger in circles on his hairless chest. “You could talk her into it.”
“Oh, it’s persuade her now?”
“Be a parent. It’s for her own good.”
“I’m not that kind of pseudo-dad.”
“What kind is that?”
“You know… the kind that gives advice, orders you around, takes an interest in your future. I’m more a friend type of dad. Somebody who teaches you how to smoke, and cheat at cards, and gives you first crack at the hookers. And then lets you go off and make your own way in life. I’m extremely cool that way.”
Rox crossed her arms over her naked chest, accentuating her cleavage. “So you’re not going to do it?”
Trip’s attention got lost in the show and he smiled. “If a suitable pause in our usual pseudo-daughter, pseudo-dad banter comes up, I’ll ask her. If Lock wants to join the coven, it’ll be entirely up to her. But no promises. And no persuasion. Anyway, I’ve got other things to worry about.”
“With Lock?”
“With the Cthulists. We’re going to war, remember?”
“Is that what that was all about?”
“Your dad okayed it.”
“Only after you egged him on, I’m sure.”
Trip sat up, reached for his jeans, piled on the floor nearby on top of his Hawaiian shirt and sneakers. “Some egg may have been involved.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t do that. He’s too easily charmed by you.”
Trip stood, zipped up. “Which is why I completely respect him and fully support his decisions.”
After the third minute of Trip loudly banging at it with his Hi-Top sneaker sole, the door finally opened, just a crack.
“And of course it’s you.” A sleepy-eyed Bernice, in a ratty baby-blue housecoat, glared at him through the crack. “It’s Three AM.”
“Exactly.” Trip lowered his sneaker. “We’re already running late.” He pushed gently at the door. It didn’t budge. “Stronger than you look, aren’t ya?”
Bernice growled. “What do you want?”
“Oh… right. Sorry, forgot it was your big night and everything.” Hopping on one leg, Trip slipped his sneaker back on. “How’s that going for you so far? You get all the honeymoon sex out of the way yet?”
“We haven’t even started the honeymoon.”
“Good. Good to hear.” He gave the door another push. Sharp and quick, catching Bernice off guard. He managed to force it wide open enough for him to slide in over the threshold before she could push back. “Well, I’m just gonna go grab him, then. Work to do.”
Bernice sighed and rested her hand on her six-months-along belly. “What work?”
“We’ve got an army to get into shape.” He glanced around the dark room, wedding gifts piled everywhere. A rectangle of red mood lighting and the dulcet tones of Tony Bennett leaked from the closed door to the back room. “First thing’s first, though: Where’d my tux get to? –I assume it’s been dry-cleaned, yes?”
4
Are You Ready For Some… Football?
“All right, listen up warbots. Dire straits, here.” All seven members of the Consolidated Sorta-Army of Shunk were huddled in a loose circle, robotic shoulders clanging together, at one end of the dusty dirt field behind the brewery. Hunt-R, a sash draped over his chest proclaiming him Quarterback / Team Captain / Chaplain, was down on one knobby-jointed knee. “Bottom of the seventh and we are down by a not insignificant number of points–”
WB-3 interrupted him. “Four-hundred and fifty-seven to two, to be exact.”
“Did anybody ask you to be exact?” Hunt-R asked.
WB-3’s head–an emptied-out plastic television shell over a pair of Betacams–drooped. “No.”
“No, what?”
“No, Squad Commander Hunt-R, Sir.”
“No, Squad Commander Hunt-R, Sir what?”
“No, Squad Commander Hunt-R, Sir,” WB-3 said, and did this little shuffling pirouette, complete with Jazz hands at the end of the third spin around.
“That’s better,” Hunt-R said. “You’re really getting good at those.”
“Been practicing at night in the barracks.”
“Well, it’s showing. Marked improvement. Keep it up. –The rest of you could stand to learn a little something from 3, here.”
“Yeah, like how to be a kiss-ass,” WB-‘Fridgerator’-5 said. “Why are you even practicing end-zone dances when we never actually get to the end-zone?”
“We got there once,” WB-3 said. “Hunt-R got there.”
“Yeah, sure.” WB-5 said. “But it was our own end-zone. He got tackled so hard it pushed him back into it.”
“Still,” WB-3 said. “We got the two points for it.”
“Because the Ref felt sorry for us,” Hunt-R said. “And rightly so. We are terrible. Anyway, where was I?”
“You were about to remind us how we’re fucked,” WB-5 said.
“Oh, yeah,” Hunt-R said. “Yes, we’re fu
cked. Big time. We are going to lose this game. Nothing we can do about that now.”
“We could,” WB-4 said, synthetic voice booming out of the four dozen speakers in his ghetto blaster head, “strap a bomb to 2 and send her long.”
WB-2 crossed extension-lamp arms over hub-crap breasts. “How is blowing me up supposed to help us win?”
“Help us what now?” WB-4 asked.
“Much as I’d like to strap bombs to all of you,” Hunt-R said, “this isn’t about winning or losing. This is about teamwork. Generalissimo Trip arranged this game to demonstrate how teamwork can make or break even the most well-armed and equipped military force. And judging from our performance so far, I think it’s safe to say lesson learned–without teamwork, we are going to lose, and lose big, every time. And not just at football.”
“Maybe it’s not so much a lack of teamwork,” WB-6 said, making constant micro-adjustments to stay balanced on his unicycle-wheel leg, “as a lack of a working knowledge of the rules of the game.”
“Yeah, it would have been nice to have been programmed with the rules,” WB-3 said. “I thought we were playing hockey the first five quarters.”
“We’re not playing hockey?” WB-6 held up a cricket bat. “Then what the hell am I doing with this?”
Hunt-R yanked the bat away from WB-6 and tossed it aside. “Regardless of what game we’re actually playing, it’s clear to me now that we’ve gotten our asses kicked solely because you idiots have refused to work as a team.”
“I like to look at it as more you sucking at giving orders we actually might want to carry out,” WB-2 said.
“Never-the-less,” Hunt-R said, “there’s just this one play left, and all I’m asking for–make that begging for–is that this one time, we show a little teamwork.”
“I dunno, that’s asking an awful lot,” WB-5 said. “What’s in it for us?”
Trip’s voice crackled over the wireless directly into their heads. “I won’t have you melted down and turned into door-jams, that’s what.”
“Sure, there’s that,” WB-3 said, “but can we also still get pizza after the game?”
“Pizza is for winners.”
“So, we’re agreed, then?” Hunt-R swept his glowing cyclopean eye across the spare-part, dirt and oil smeared faces of the sorta-army. “To avoid being melted down, we actually try this one time to carry out the plan?”
“If there’s not going to be any pizza, I vote for melting,” WB-3 said.
WB-2 whacked 3 in the side of the TV set. “Shut up. –We’re in.”
“Good,” Hunt-R said. He stretched a hand out at WB-5. “Ball?”
WB-5 opened his chest freezer door and pulled out the frosted, half-deflated orange rubber ball. He handed it to Hunt-R. “So what’s the plan again?”
“What’s the plan?” Hunt-R asked. “It’s the same plan we’ve had each play since the beginning of the game!”
“Count of three, we toss them the ball and run away?” WB-3 asked.
“Head for the hills, yep,” WB-2 nodded.
“So say we all,” WB-6 said.
Hunt-R rubbed his temple with a fingertip. “That is not the plan.”
“But it should be,” WB-2 said. “They’re murdering us here. Literally. 1’s head has gone missing.”
They all turned to look at WB-1, leaned back in tripod speed mode, his cylindrical torso topped by a jagged-edged smoking crater of wires and servos. A light on his chest flashed out Morse code: “I… j…u…s…t… w…a…n…t… t…o… g…o… h…o…m…e.”
“We all do, 1.” WB-2 patted WB-1 on the shoulder. “We’re seriously outclassed here.”
“Not to mention in serious pain,” WB-4 said, and looked over his shoulder down the field at the other team, waiting impatiently at the 101st Parallel. The four eight-year-old members of Miss Bernice’s Third Grade class glared back at him and he shuddered. “That little pig-tailed one can really kick,” he said, rubbing his dented shin.
“Yeah, about that,” WB-5 said, “why do we have pain sensors, again? And why can’t we turn them off? I mean, we’re robots. We don’t need to feel pain. There’s no reason–”
“Pain builds character,” Trip said into their heads.
WB-2 lowered her voice. “I’d like to build him some character.”
“Save it for the field,” Hunt-R said. He thrust his hand into the center of the huddle. The others placed their hands/pincers/lampshades on top of it. “All right, let’s get this over with. Somebody give me a mournful dirge and… break!”
Hunt-R looked up and they were all running off. For the sidelines. And right on past.
“Sorry!” WB-4 yelled back over his shoulder. “We’ll send a postcard!”
They rounded a grain silo and were gone. Hunt-R’s shoulders sagged. “Well… at least they’re finally showing some teamwork.”
Sitting on a beach chair on the sidelines behind a knee-high wall of sandbags, Lock watched the robots running off the field and asked: “I take it that’s not how this game is supposed to be played?”
“No, not really,” Rudy said. He was sitting up on the sandbag wall, his back to the field, cross-legged, smoking his Calabash. “Not at all, in fact.”
“Vishnu’s sciatica.” Trip stood at the sandbag wall, shaking his head sadly out at the field. “This is all your fault, the both of you, you know. My army is hopeless. Useless.”
“And that’s our fault how?” Rudy asked.
“You built them.”
“You programmed them,” Rudy snapped back.
“So obviously,” Trip said, “it’s not the programming.”
“Not so obvious,” Lock said. “They held up pretty well. Except for 1’s head and 4’s knees and 3’s rib cage and left camera and…”
“You’re not helping our argument, here, Lock,” Rudy said.
“Sorry, unc. What I was getting at is, for robots built from junk yard scrap they’re exceptionally solid. Mechanically. Now, the programming… that’s another story. Bit of a mess, that.” Lock smirked at Trip. “And it doesn’t exactly help they all have your lazy, cowardly, selfish personality.”
Trip took his Altoid tin out from an inner jacket pocket, flipped it open and grabbed a hand-rolled cig. He let it dangle between his lips. “Look who’s talking.”
“Point,” Lock said. “But you know I can fix that, right? I don’t know why you won’t let me–”
Trip snapped the Altoid tin shut and stuffed it away in his jacket. “You wanna fix something? How about fixing yourself?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lock asked.
“It means,” Trip said, fumbling around in his pockets for his Zippo, “I think maybe it’s about time your life had a little structure, young lady.”
Lock’s eyebrow went up and she pursed her lips in thought. “You know, to be honest, I’d been thinking the same thing myself–”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Trip gave up looking for his lighter and jabbed the unlit cig at Lock. “You’re joining the Sisters of No Mercy, and that’s that. Your parental unit has spoken.”
“Okay,” Lock said, standing.
Trip fixed Lock with a steely glare. “I said, your parental unit has spoken.”
Lock returned the steely glare. “And I said ‘okay’.”
“Well. Good.” Trip waved a dismissive hand at her. “Now go be a nun already.”
“Later,” Lock said with a roll of her mirrored eyes, and skipped off.
“You know she’s right,” Rudy said after she was out of ear-shot. “It’s the programming.”
“Shut up and go round up your useless robots, will you?”
Rudy slid off the sandbags. “They’re probably half-way to Rehoboth by now.”
“Well, then you’d better hustle,” Trip said to Rudy, then picked up a wrench from the sandbag wall and put his middle fingertip against his temple. “Hunt-R! Get your ass over here. You and me and this wrench are gonna have a little talk about leadership.”
5
Get Thee To A Nunnery
“Is she gonna do that all morning?” Yolanda asked.
Decked out in their uniforms of black leather corset, miniskirt, thigh-high lace-topped chessboard stockings, knee-high stiletto boots, and patent leather habits, the Sisters of No Mercy coven stood in the Temple of Sex and Charity’s antechamber, huddled together around the door to the Inner Rosy Chamber and Orgy Room. They were staring across the antechamber at Lock, utterly motionless in her white short-sleeved tux, hands clasped behind her back, her mirrored eyes glowing red in the dim candle light. A satchel lay on the floor at her feet. Next to Lock, the young acolyte Brenda sat at her post beside the door to the street, idly smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt with her palms and stealing the occasional curious sideways glance at their silver-skinned visitor.
“What?” Lindsay-Joe asked. “The hovering?”
“And the staring,” Yolanda said.
“More of a scowl,” Ophelia noted.
“Yeah,” Xanadu said, “that’s definitely a scowl.”
“I don’t think she wants to be here,” Denise said.
“Makes two of us,” Ophelia said.
“More than two of us,” Georgina said.
“You guys don’t wanna be here?” Xanadu asked. “I thought you liked–”
“We meant we don’t want her here, Xan,” Georgina said.
Xanadu nodded. “Oh, yeah, that makes more sense.”
“None of us want her here,” Yolanda said.
“I want her here,” Roxanne said, striding out of the Inner Rosy Chamber in her Mother Superior’s sequined, cup-less corset, a platinum double-helix phallus nestled between her bare breasts. Her steel-toed stilettos clacked on the temple’s marble floor. Bernice followed her through the door and closed it behind them.
“Oh, hi Mother Rox,” Yolanda said, sheepish. “We we’re just–”
“I know what you were just.” Roxanne said. “And I know this is going to be a lot more than a little weird, considering what the All-Mind put us through. But as someone keeps reminding me, Lock’s not the All-Mind. She used to be, but not anymore. She’s going to be one of us, now, and that’s all that matters. So, get over it.”
