by J. I. Greco
WB-4 grunted at Lock’s boot. “Oh come on, we’re trying to play a game here. –What’s the Voice?”
Lock bent low and moved out of the way for Roxanne, coming up the ladder behind her. “It’s how I communicated with them back when we were all one happy zombie family. Interesting, them trying to replicate it. Maybe they think it will give them some power over me.”
“It’s rather unpleasant,” WB-3 said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Roxanne said, climbing onto the walkway. She crouched down next to WB-6. “Some army you are.”
“We turned that annoying siren off, didn’t we?” WB-2 said.
Roxanne frowned. “Instead of hiding up here, shouldn’t you be manning the front gate?”
“The front gate!” WB-4 slapped his pincer against his tape deck. “Why didn’t I think of that? We could just walk right out! Anybody got a sheet we can tear into white flags?”
Roxanne shook her head at Lock. “These guys are useless.”
“Knowing who programmed them, you’re just figuring that out?” Lock asked. “All right robots, clear off.”
“Seriously?” WB-2 asked.
“You’re just in the way.”
The robots let out a cheer and one by one, jumped or rolled off the walkway, scampering off into the back alleys of Shunk. WB-5 jumped last, scooping up the Monopoly board into his stomach and bowing his head at Lock and Roxanne with a polite “Ma’ams” as he went over the side.
Lock stretched up on tip-toes to take a look over the edge of the car wall. “I don’t suppose we can count on the noble citizens of Shunk to come to the aid of their city?”
Roxanne came up beside her, looked over herself. She whistled. “It’s three in the morning. Prime drunken stupor time.”
“And let’s face it,” Bernice said, her head appearing at the top of the ladder, “the city will probably be better off if they stay passed out.”
Roxanne shot a confident smile at Bernice. “Well, then looks like we get to prove we earned our small arms and close quarter combat badges. Go get us some guns from the armory, will ya? Anything automatic. Then gather the girls at the front gate. I’ll meet you down–”
“No way. Not leaving you alone with her,” Bernice said, glaring at Lock. “They girls are already on it, anyway.” Bernice climbed onto the walkway and reached under her leather mini. She pulled a rusty .22 Beretta out of a lace thigh holster. “And I’m never without.”
“Since when are you packing?” Roxanne asked.
“Since that metal bitch came to town.”
“Lot of good it’s done you so far,” Lock said.
Bernice stepped up to Lock, got right in her face. “And don’t think we’re done, you and me, just because you didn’t kill Rox.”
Lock stared unblinking down at Bernice. “I told you, I’m not into girl-girl stuff.”
Bernice grunted and turned towards Roxanne. “Why are we even thinking about risking our lives here? They’re obviously here for her. I say we give them what they want.”
Looking back and forth at Lock and out towards the droning monotone from the refugees, Roxanne chewed her lip. She puffed her cheeks out and sighed, opened her mouth–
“What an excellent idea,” Lock said, cutting Roxanne off before she could speak. She clambered on top of the car wall to stand on the hood of a ’19 El Dorado-E and shouted down at the refugees. “Here I am! Go ahead, shoot me! I deserve it, right? After everything I’ve put all of you through, it’d be justice served and all that!”
A thousand faces turned to look at Lock. The droning monotone got louder. But nobody shot at her.
Lock threw up her hands. “Oh, for non-existent gods’ sake, does nobody around here have any balls?”
“I’ll do it,” Bernice said, raising the Beretta and sliding the action back.
“Bernie,” Roxanne said, but without much conviction.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself, then.” Lock stretched her hand out and down behind her, her arm going long and thin, and plucked the Beretta from Bernice’s hand. Lock reeled her arm in, put the barrel of the pistol flat against her right temple, and fired.
The refugees let out a collective gasp.
The left side of Lock’s head ballooned out. But it didn’t burst.
After a moment, Lock’s head shrunk back down to its usual size and shape. Lock lowered the pistol and spit the slug out of her mouth. She shouted down at the refugees: “Made of microscopic robots, remember? So, yeah, if you want to kill me, you’re going to have to get creative!”
The din of the refugees talking in hushed, confused voices among themselves was broken by a single woman’s voice calling out: “Excuse me?”
“I said, if you want to–”
Another refugee, a man, shouted out from the throng: “We don’t want to kill you!”
“Torture, then,” Lock said, shrugging. She tossed the Beretta over her shoulder at Bernice. “Whatever.”
“Torture?” a third refugee shouted. “Why would we want to do that? We don’t want to kill or torture you.”
“Then what do you want?” Lock asked.
“The last six months have been so hard,” said an old woman. “We tried. We really did. We built a city, but what do we do next?”
“Our lives are so… empty now,” said yet another refugee.
“Directionless...” added a child.
The woman who had spoken first spoke again. “We need our Voice.”
In unison, the refugees raised their hands up towards her, and their voices in a strong, assured monotone hum.
“Well.” Lock smiled a sharp half smile. “It’s about fuckin’ time.”
18
And Finally… That War We’ve Been Going On About
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight, Builder Rudy…”
Her tar and feather coating having acquired a thick mat of road dust, the Festering Wound was parked on the top of a hill somewhere in what the old maps referred to as the Catskills. Hunt-R, Rudy and Trip sat along the side the car in folding beach chairs, watching the rocky field before them where two armies heedlessly rushed towards each other under the dawn sun. One charged from the west, thousands of screaming Red Chinese infantry, their assault rifles popping off tens of thousands of rounds of ammo each second. The other, from the east, thousands of body-armored squid, their tentacles writhing blurs, their twin-barreled maser rifles spitting out beams of pink plasma.
“…In exchange for Bradley and his army agreeing to attack the Warlord Hu, Programmer Trip has agreed to let the Cthulists enslave humanity, after which they will force you all to commit ritual suicide so some ancient aliens masquerading as gods can use the released psychic energy to escape from their undersea imprisonment and have Earth all to themselves. Sound about right?”
“Sounds about exactly right,” Rudy said. “Pass the jug, eh?”
Hunt-R handed the half-full milk gallon of beer to Rudy. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to be a robot. You think my new alien god masters will make me ride around in a trunk?”
“I don’t think they’ll have much use for cars,” Rudy said.
“Oh, that’ll be nice. –Well, it’s been nice knowing you, humans. Happy suicides!”
“Don’t get excited, robot.” Trip leaned back in his beach chair, crossed his legs, and lit a cig. “I didn’t agree to the whole convert-to-squids-and-kill-ourselves-to-usher-in-the-new-glorious-dark-god-age bit. All we’re doing here, besides ensuring Hu gets a good rue-ing, is giving Bradley an opportunity to prove to his dad that they’re strong enough to launch their squid apocalypse if they so feel like it.”
“They’re gonna feel like it,” Rudy said.
Trip shrugged. “Eventually. It won’t be like tomorrow or anything. Couple years. Months, at the least. And for the record, I told Bradley to expect a little resistance there, when the time comes. You know, if I’m not busy.”
“Yeah, you’ve got such a full dance card.”
Rudy winced at the decimation and panic spreading through Hu’s force. He covered his eyes with a hand. “How you figure?”
Trip applauded. “Now that’s what I call a flanking maneuver. –Think about it. If there’s a good world war going, that opens up a whole Shatner-load of opportunities for us.”
Rudy opened his fingers to look up at Trip. “To get killed, sure.”
“Always the pessimist. No, I’m talking business opportunities.”
“Business opportunities?”
“Damn straight.” Trip turned reluctantly away from the battle field, where the muimuipouritan were crushing infantry beneath their trunks as they fought their way towards Hu’s tanks. “All those city-states and settlements out there are gonna need defending from the oncoming squid hoards–and that means a huge demand for supplemental robo-mechanical soldiers. Huge. We’re gonna have to automate. Mass production, that’s all there is to it. We’ll have to build a factory, maybe two, train assembly line workers, figure out where we can cut costs, skimp on materials… all that’s gonna take a considerable amount of your time and energy.”
“My time and energy?”
“Well, yeah. I’m gonna be busy negotiating the deals.” Trip’s face got this far-away, starry-eyed look to it. “We’ll be able to charge absolutely whatever the fuck we want, and we’ll get it.” He rubbed his hands together. “Oh, how we’ll gouge.”
“So by business opportunities you mean war profiteering?”
“Of course. What else? Good old war profiteering. Don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.”
“Yeah, brilliant,” Rudy said. “Spark an apocalypse so you can sell crapy warbots.”
“Hey…” Hunt-R said.
“No offense,” Rudy said.
“Eh,” Hunt-R shrugged his shoulders, “I know how shoddy I am.”
Trip spun around. Out in the field, the muimuipouritan plowed into the line of Chinese tanks, ripping away turrets, knocking the tanks onto their sides as if they weighed nothing. “Man, I almost feel bad.”
“About dooming humanity?” Rudy asked.
“Oh, Shatner no. About Hu. She’s really getting her ass kicked. I was just after a little payback, but this almost seems cruel. I mean, she wasn’t bad in bed, you know what I’m saying? Those fingers of hers… she could work ’em like a socket wrench, seriously.”
“Well, I just hope you’re proud of yourself, dude.”
“I have to admit, I sorta am.”
Grinning, Trip plopped down into his beach chair. In the field, Hu’s army was in shambles. The soldiers that hadn’t been killed already were scattering, running away, only to be pursued by snarling, fast-moving attack bushes. And there in the center of the chaos, the nose of Warlord Hu’s six-legged command tank was dug into the dirt, three of its legs ripped away by artillery fire. Hu stood atop the tank, firing her pistol futilely down at the hoards of squid slowly, inexorably, closing in on her. And there on the hill opposite the Wound, overlooking his army’s impending victory from astride a muimuipouritan, Brad waved at Trip. A friendly, happy wave.
Trip’s grin slowly faded and he glanced over at Rudy. “This is gonna bite us in the ass, isn’t it?”
Rudy took a slug of beer. “In both cheeks, multiple times.”
“Vishnu’s nipples…” After a moment, Trip shrugged, and smirked. “Oh, well, couldn’t be helped.”
Free Stuff
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About the Author
J.I. GRECO is an author, doodler, amateur curmudgeon, and disposable fountain pen owner.
Visit his official website at:
grecoverse.com
Also by J.I. Greco
Yuki Feldman: Licensed Space Pirate
Dungeon Breakers and the Tower of Doom!
Rocketship Patrol
Broont and Van Helsing: Zombie Makers
Spill
Greed Sloth Arrogance and Shame
Scoundrels of the Wasteland:
#0: Death Blimps of Doom! (Get this free at grecoverse.com!)
#1: Take the All-Mart!
#2: We’re Going to War!
#3: Death From Above!
